RONIN: Turk Side Story
by smartbad
Summary: Turk Unit R0-414 (callsign: Zolom) was the most-capable and respected unit in the Turks organization, until they were framed for treason against Shinra and became scattered fugitives. Now, five years after their exile from Midgar, the four former-Turks are preparing for a reunion that could destroy the Turks, Shinra, and quite possibly themselves. Set ten years before FFVII.
1. File 00 - Prologue: Zero Protocol

**File 00: PROLOGUE: 'ZERO PROTOCOL'**

" _This is Jika Thunderson! I'm issuing an official arrest order for the following individuals: Evan Oris, Valerick Goodliffe, Riwin Koucha, and Shizune Mai! Apprehend alive, if possible. Shoot-to-kill has been authorized by Shinra High Command! This is Jika Thunderson! I repeat…_ "

It had been a long time since Shizune had heard her own real name being used over the MP channels, and hearing it again used in such a debased manner was perplexing to say the least. The head of Turks Research and Development sat cross-legged in her lab putting the finishing touches on an orbital satellite laser system to be field tested by the Turks and perhaps stolen away by Shinra Science Division for use by the greater company, as was modus operandi these days. The strange MP transmission, automatically flagged by her _Arcos_ surveillance system for alert because it contained several Vermillion-level classified terms-specifically, the real names of actual Turk agents-was particularly troublesome. Shizune cursed under her breath.

"Surely, this is a goddamn jo-"

" _You heard the confused manling,_ " cut in Evan Oris over the private Turk coms channel, her voice noticeably grave. " _This is not a drill. Good news: Thunderson has blown the element of surprise for the P_ _aramilitary_ _corps. Bad news: our Turk_ _unit_ _is now Shinra public enemy #1. I'm not sure why yet, but for all of you on this private channel, enact_ Zero Protocol _. This is my final order._ "

A pregnant silence followed for only a fraction of a second but seemed to last an eternity. Although she was a consummate professional, Shizune found her senses still swimming in bewildered shock.

The unmistakable report of breaching charges and muffled gunfire in the room adjacent to her lab brought her back into immediate action. Truly, if this is the time for the _Zero Protocol_ , then everyone had their own part to play, their own roles in the coming impromptu exodus. Valerick and Riwin were on assignment, and would be on their own, which frankly suited the both of them just fine. Evan and Shizune were still in the office compound, so it was up to them to burn all trails. The reasons could be reckoned later. What mattered most now was survival.

Shizune's dexterous fingers danced across her terminal keyboard as she began base lockdown and a full erasure of their records. A shortwave radio burst issued from a device just under her desk-a single wireless command destroyed the delicate internal mechanisms of all the devices she had invented in her term as the head of the Turk's Research and Special Projects Division. Shizune frowned. Though she was proud that the failsafe she and Evan had concocted years ago worked, the en-masse destruction of her inventions felt like a stab in the heart. Now there was but one thing left to do.

" _Shizune,_ " Evan said over a private comlink, her transmission overloaded with the sound of barking machine gun fire. " _My special-issue TMP has failed,_ " Evan said cooly.

Shizune pressed two fingers to her ear and responded immediately.

"I'm sorry, ma'am, I-"

" _Good girl. You've destroyed all of our toys, then,_ " Evan said, the hint of a grin evident in her tone. " _Now, wipe us from history, then get the hell out of here._ "

"Roger that," Shizune said, already enacting the software version of the Zero Protocol which would completely remove all records of them from the Shinra InfoNet permanently. "But, ma'am, what about you?"

" _Your concern is noted, but superfluous._ _I still have The Terminator."_

Mishima Heavy Industries Type-800 Variable-Ammunition Anti-personnel Shotgun-Evan customized and named hers "The Terminator." It was said that if the safety on The Terminator was released, the weapon could not be re-safetied without first tasting enemy blood. Shinra typically frowned upon their agents and employees usingequipment made by competitors, but Evan could care less.

" _No one opposing me this day will live,_ " Evan explained, almost managing to sound disinterested.

An angry red progress bar flared to life on all of Shizune's monitors, indicating the irrevocable erasure of their records from the Shinra InfoNet. Shizune propped her glasses up on her face with her index finger and watched the progress with gritted teeth. "Come on, _come on_ …" she said under her strained breath. The sound of Evan fighting the enemy in the next room getting more ferocious in intensity made Shizune clench her jaw. For as much as she wanted to go assist Evan, the absolute priority was to ensure the fulfillment of _Zero Protocol_ -all other concerns were secondary, for if any portion of their pre-planned _Zero Protocol_ went uncompleted, any potential physical escape would be essentially imperfect and meaningless.

Despite her urge to support her Turk unit commander, Shizune could tell that Evan was fulfilling her promise of death to the Military Police who had arrived to arrest or kill them. She could hear the pitch of the battle, and her mind instantly analyzed the fight-the rapid, staccato'd fire was obviously the standard-issue MP carbine. The 3-to-4 burst-bark was the tell-tale signature of MP training. That the bursts maintained an easy-to-mark pattern meant that these fools were certainly not Alpha Company, and therefore did not make proper use of their automatic weapons. As a counter to the predictable pattern of the machine gun fire was the thunderous single-fire cannonade of Evan's Terminator. With each singular blast, there was less texture to the cacophony of the machine gun fire-Evan was one-shotting MPs.

The data erasure finished a moment after that, the progress bar showing a glowing, blood-red 100% for a second before the Zero Protocol began frying both the hardware and software of all the Turk terminals in the office. Static filled all the screen monitors in the lab, and Shizune, still dressed in her black business skirt and white labcoat, checked her sidearm for good measure-a habit left over from her days as a former Alpha Company MP. Her weapon of choice was an 8-round custom high-caliber revolver which she designed herself, lovingly named "The Baroness."

She gave the ammo cylinder a spin with the flick of her palm, then began running full-sprint to the bookcase opposite her station. She pulled out three books seemingly at random, throwing them on the floor, and the bookcase slid to the left to reveal a solid metal door of unpolished steel, a tiny window slit of blast-reinforced glass residing at her eye-level. This door led not to a room, but to an escape pod which would jettison from the Turks' offices on the upper floors of Shinra Tower and land gently at pre-programmed coordinates. Each pod contained a Turks emergency go-bag-extra gil, weapons, ammo, forged passports and IDs- which would come in handy for the subsequent escape. There was just such a pod in each room of the Turks highrise compound, and Shizune hoped that all of her now-apparently-outlawed cell would make it to their pod. This pod in particular was set for an access alley just behind Mako Reactor 03.

Shizune pulled open the heavy blast door with some effort, and secured herself within the pod, which only had enough standing room for one standard adult. Once she was securely fastened within the pod, the blast door closed automatically. She raised her hand to key the launch sequence, but hesitated. Shizune's hand hovered over the launch console, the momentary thought of Evan fighting alone in the next room halting her hasty, per-orders retreat. Despite the fact that Shizune had designed the pod to be mostly soundproof, it still surprised her that the sound of the firefight was completely sealed out. Alone with her own momentary regrets in the silence of the escape pod, Shizune activated her comlink once more.

"Ma'am," Shizune said, seemingly louder than she intended to. " _Zero Protocol_ has been completed. I'm currently in the lab's escape pod, do you require back up?"

The silence of the next moment was as thick as blood.

"Boss, please respond!"

" _What are you still doing here, woman!_ " Evan yelled back over the coms, " _Get moving!_ "

"Roger wilco!" Shizune replied.

" _One more thing, Shizune,_ " Evan shouted over the vox, the sound of the firefight in the background growing in intensity. " _I've only seen MPs so far. Fodder, all of them. SOLDIER hasn't yet been mobiliz-_ "

A thunderclap of furious, volcanic sound and an immense pressure wave turned Shizune's entire world into ringing and white blindness.

An explosion had taken out the entire Western wall of the lab, opposite of Shizune's escape pod. Shrapnel from the explosion tore a gaping hole in the escape pod and lacerated Shizune's right forearm. The wound wasn't deep, but would become an impedance later on if not tended to properly. The sharp white-blue of summer daylight and the cold wind of that altitude were flooding into the lab, followed swiftly by several rappel lines dangling into view of the new breach. Down these ropes came several warriors, all wearing the same navy-blue fatigues, avian-beaked helms, and large melee weapons of various design.

SOLDIER had indeed been mobilized.

Shizune gave a guttural yell and slammed her palm down on the launch button. The entire pod began to jolt and vibrate violently from the firing of its launch rockets. From the shattered viewing slit of the pod, Shizune could see the SOLDIERs arrayed in front of the pod, many raising their weapons to shield themselves from the sudden launch blast. One of the SOLDIERs had planted his buster sword into the floor to anchor himself. He had his right hand raised straight out in front of him, aimed accusingly right at the pod. In that moment, Shizune recognized that lackluster SOLDIER-Miyamoto Kaizen, 2nd Class. He had been on their unit's track list for months and was but one shot away from being liquidated by the Turks. In that frozen moment of recognition, Miyamoto seemed to look through his helmet directly at Shizune through the view slit.

He was smiling.

 _This is_ _all_ _wrong!_ Shizune screamed internally, her face twisted in a grimace of hate.

Despite the long cut in her forearm, Shizune unholstered and unsafetied the Baroness in a single fluid motion which spoke of countless hours of practice, and began firing directly at Miyamoto. She would have hit her mark many times over if not for the launch itself.

The escape pod tore away from the Eastern side of Shinra Tower like a missile, and Shizune lost site of the lab, the SOLDIERs and the building itself, as the pod re-oriented towards the landing coordinates. Shizune had never personally tested this device and was screaming from the g-forces now being exerted on her body. Icy wind surged through the open gash in the front of the pod, making the blood of her wound sticky and cold.

There was another explosion.

It rocked the entire escape pod and deafened Shizune. All the lit control panels in front of Shizune went dead, and propulsion stopped entirely. She could feel the pod spinning now. The light coming in from the view slit was also spinning. She could smell burnt electronics. There was an intense falling sensation.

Somehow, Shizune's pod had been hit, and the pod was falling fast.

No.

Not _somehow_.

Images of Kaizen's outstretched hand moments before launch flashed in Shizune's mind.

 _He had been casting!_

Shizune thought frantically _. At this rate, from this altitude,_ _terminal velocity was a given outcome. The sheer physics of the situation do not present any numerical chance of survival. The gravity of the situation was-_

Shizune's eyes widened frantically and she brought her left hand up to door of the pod, pressing her palm firmly against it. She only had seconds. She tensed herself to prepare for the pain that was going to come. She knew she might only come out of this barely alive, but it was still a better shot than doing nothing. Closing her eyes, Shizune channeled her will into her Gravity materia, targeting the pod itself. She knew that the gravity spell could theoretically act as an inertial canceller, making the fall from this height potentially survivable, but it was going to hurt like hell. If she lived through it.

The materia began to activate, and a dark, bruise-colored etheric miasma with a lightless pinpoint for a center appeared around the falling escape pod. The reinforced steel of pod began to groan, creak, and buckle violently, and Shizune began to feel a deep and painful constriction in her chest that felt as though her heart was being instantly tightened within a saw-toothed vice. She opened her mouth wide to scream but nothing came out-her diaphragm had been arrested by the gravity well. There was only the sickening sound of the pod imploding around her and the tesla-coil-buzz of the chaotic energies which composed her gravity spell. The sound was deafening. Shizune had never been on the receiving end of this horrific spell, but now she understood why it was so fearsome and cruel a weapon. Her eyes widened further as she felt the sharp flashfires of pain in her sides as some of her ribs began to break.

A massive pressure filled Shizune's eardrums and she began to weep tears of pain. A giant ethereal fist was crushing her to death. In a strange moment of clarity, she wondered how this had been a good idea. She wondered too, how bizarre it was that her entire life and career would come to an end one sunny, Sunday afternoon in a summer not worth noting. She wondered about her sister who would be left to deal with all of this. A sight from the escape pod view slit brought her out of her misplaced reverie-the ground was rushing at her with menacing speed. She couldn't brace herself for the impact.

\ \ \

Shizune woke with a start. She inhaled huge gulps of air as if she had had been suffocating. She could hear a wheezing, moaning thing nearby, and that put her on edge. It took her a few moments to realize that the noise was coming from her.

The world was sideways, and the blanket was damp from her sweat. Shizune was lying face-down on a baby-blue futon. It was morning. There was a dull pain in her head. A faint summer wind blowing in from the open window played gently with her long streaks of raven black hair as they dropped haphazardly across her face. As the view of her tiny bedroom came slowly into focus again, Shizune composed herself. After several long moments of re-centering, Shizune sat up in her bed and closed her eyes.

"和敬清寂," (" _Wa-kei-sei-jaku_ "), Shizune said evenly, slowly in Wutaian to no one, savoring each syllable.

"That woman has been dead for five years," she said, as if reaffirming a well-known fact.

"I am Rei Kashiwabara."


	2. File 01 - Sado

**SHINRA TOWER, MIDGAR**

 **DISC 02 - APRIL 2005**

"Shinra Military Police, Alpha Company Commanding Officer, Captain Shizune Mai," the blonde woman in the black suit said evenly.

Shizune stood rigidly in front of the diminutive blonde woman who was seated at a lacquered wooden desk. Not more than 30 minutes prior, Shizune in her full MP battle dress, administering training drills with the rest of her Alpha Company MPs in the Virtual Reality training hall on the 60th floor of Shinra Tower. While in her battle gear, Shizune was unrecognizable by face-the mandate of the Alpha Company doctrine was that no Alpha may show their face when on duty, and as a matter of practice, they all made use of crimson face masks. Now, however, having been summoned to an unremarkably small office on the 66th floor, Shizune stood before them in her meeting uniform-a khaki upper and lower that looked like a cross between regular army fatigues and something a dignitary might wear, her raven black bob-cut topped with a simple crimson beret. Her hair was parted on the right, and the long bangs knifed downwards on either side of her porcelain, Wutaian face. In place of her targeting optics eyepatch, she wore her reading glasses. Shizune always felt naked without her crimson face mask. No, naked wasn't the right word. _At a tactical disadvantage_ , Shizune thought, irritated.

The blonde woman, who had yet to introduce herself, was flanked on either side of the desk by two other similarly besuited individuals. The man to her left was slightly taller than Shizune, standing at about 5' 10", with a crop of jet black hair parted at the side, the spikes of which sloped downward at angles. He seemed to be at least part-Wutaian, and at least partly familiar. The other man to the woman's right was much taller, probably in the upper-six-foot range. He had a large horizontal scar running across his face at the bridge of his nose and violet eyes. A short shock of black hair culminated in a ridge of short bangs which jutted pugnaciously up and forward. This man wore his stubble proudly and seemed to be sporting a subtle, yet perpetual grin.

"What do you know about the Turks?" the blonde woman asked.

Shizune raised an eyebrow slightly.

"Pardon?"

"The Turks," the woman said again with the same neutral tone as before, only this time with slightly more enunciation.

There was something about this woman that Shizune could not gauge, and that put her on internal alert. The fact that she was asking about "Turks" was just pure nonsense. The fact that Shizune had been in this same situation before several years prior-on the upper office floors of the tower in a private meeting with some unknown suit who asked about "Turks"-was laughably redundant. The memory of that event still made her smolder with embarrassment and rage. When she was but a Staff Sergeant, word had got out that Shizune was trying to get into the Turks, a group of suits who supposedly carried out clandestine operations for Shinra-the kind of operations that were morally gray and should not be linked back to the company. Shortly after, Shizune was contacted by a woman in a suit and brought to an office not unlike the one she was standing in now. _The woman with the cigar_ , Shizune remembered. She had told her that she was selected as their next recruit. Then, when the woman couldn't hold her composure anymore, she threw off her disguise and bellowed a retarded brand of laughter. SOLDIER 3rd Class Lina Rosewater, whom Shizune had several run-ins with in the past, explained through amused giggles that the Turks weren't real, and that Shizune was a fool for believing thusly. The entirety of the SOLDIER corps came out of hiding and began laughing at her. Shizune summarily punched Rosewater in the jaw, breaking her own hand in the process, and spent a week in the brig for assault on a SOLDIER.

That was five years ago.

"The Turks are a myth," Shizune began, "they are simply a scary story concocted by the denizens under the plate to frighten their children into behaving."

The blonde woman stared at Shizune, unblinking. Shizune had seen this sort of glassy-eyed look before on storefront mannequins.

"Is that what you believe, Captain Mai?"

"I don't see a reason to believe otherwise," Shizune said, as-a-matter-of-factly.

The blonde woman's eyes lowered briefly, then darted back up to Shizune.

"So," the woman said slowly, apparently still in thought, "that's all there is to it, then? Can there be no truth to the legend of these, 'Turks?'"

"Legend?" Shizune snorted. "The _rumor,_ " Shizune corrected, "is just that-a mere fiction."

The woman's eyes lowered again, and Shizune thought she heard a strange sharp breathing noise come from the taller man with the plastic grin.

"And what if it were true?" the woman asked. "What then?"

Shizune scowled.

"What if they were real, and they wanted to recruit you?" the woman stated, as if it were some kind of a reward.

In an instant, Shizune grabbed the woman by the collar. The woman made no move to defend herself, and she did not seem afraid, either. Instead, she swiftly raised a hand to gesture for her comrades to hold. The both of the men in the room seemed to exchange glances, but no one seemed shocked at all. In fact, it seemed they all still wore their bored expressions.

"Do you know who _I_ am?" Shizune seethed. "I am the Company Commander of Shinra's elite-the Alpha Company. I was trained personally by Major Rhian Oris, and Lieutenant Colonel Rikka Langly before her. I was given my command over the crimson legion by none other than General Zedrick LaVend himself."

Shizune's gloved grip on the woman's collar tightened with a telltale sound of leather straining.

"You want to waste my time, bring me up here to discuss _legends_? Fine. _The Crimson Lady_. That's what the human trash of the slums call _me_. They say _The Crimson Lady_ and her Alpha Legion take no prisoners, and that she devours the fresh hearts of her enemies," Shizune spat. " _That's_ a rumor you should look into!"

"I heard," the blonde woman said nonchalantly, "that when you started as a Private, your peers in the MP used to call you _The Crazy Cheesecake Lady._ "

Shizune's eyebrow twitched rapidly and her teeth clenched in a gristle-pop. She coiled her left fist for a knock out strike and let the blow trace its thunderous trajectory upwards, aiming for the woman's chin.

The dull, sickening thud of the blow was immediately accompanied by a resounding explosion of pain-on Shizune's _own_ chin.

Through a red, unfocused haze, Shizune realized that she was now on the floor, on her back, looking up at the three people in the suits. They looked down at Shizune curiously, as if she were some kind of strange animal. The blonde woman was unharmed.

Shizune hadn't even landed her blow.

 _You bitch!_ Shizune had meant to scream, but all that came out was "Mfhmhmhfm!" Her jaw was broken in two places. The blonde woman was kneeling beside Shizune now, her face close. She flexed the fingers of her right hand and shook them out as if to let crumbs fall from them. Shizune tried to move, but her limbs felt like lead. She'd never been hit this hard before. She could see the blonde woman's face up close again, but this time she had an actual emotion written there. It didn't make sense. The woman seemed to be smiling, as if satisfied with something.

All three of these black-suited bastards were smiling.

"This-one-is-fascinating-," the blonde woman declared with a smile, drawing out each word like a sword from a sheath.

"Right!? I fucking told you!" the black-haired man exclaimed with pride, stabbing a pointer finger downward at the prone Shizune. "She's perfect!"

The taller man chuckled, the bass rumble like a landslide waiting to happen. "Don't get ahead of yourself, boy. She's not in yet."

"Well look, she's still conscious," the black haired man said, still pointing excitedly at Shizune. She felt as though she wanted to vomit.

The taller man seemed to shrug his shoulders in concession. "Alright, so she passed the first test. She remained cognizant after getting decked by the Boss. Big deal."

The blonde woman continued to stare at Shizune with a soft smile as she stood and smoothed her suit with both of her delicate hands.

"She's neat, I want to see more. Val?" she said to the taller man. "Bring her up to the office. We'll get her some ice and then have a genuine conversation."

The taller man hoisted Shizune's body onto his shoulder, stomach down, and now Shizune was facing behind him. Her crimson beret was still on the ground. When the taller man stood at full height, Shizune's head was level with the blonde woman.

"By the way, about Rhian," the woman said.

Shizune wanted to headbutt this bitch's teeth in for using her former CO's first name that way.

"You shouldn't throw my cousin's name around like a credential," the woman said. "She hates that."

Shizune groaned angrily, strings of bloody drool spilling out of her now monumentally swollen lower jaw. Her eyes were locked firmly on her beret.

The blonde woman followed Shizune's eyes to the ground, then she snapped her fingers at the black haired man as they began to leave the room. "Koucha."

The black haired man stooped quickly as he was leaving the office and fished up the crimson beret as he followed his cohorts out the door of the tiny, unremarkable office on the 66th floor of Shinra Tower.

* * *

 **TOWN OF BANSHU, SOUTHERN WUTAI**

 **DISC 03 - JULY 2015**

Shizune woke with a start. She inhaled huge gulps of air as if she had had been suffocating. She could hear a wheezing, moaning thing nearby, and that put her on edge. It took her a few moments to realize that the noise was coming from her.

The world was sideways, and the blanket was damp from her sweat. Shizune was lying face-down on a baby-blue futon. It was morning. There was a dull pain in her head. A faint summer wind blowing in from the open window played gently with her long streaks of raven black hair as they dropped haphazardly across her face. As the view of her tiny bedroom came slowly into focus again, Shizune composed herself. After several long moments of re-centering, Shizune sat up in her bed and closed her eyes.

"和敬清寂," (" _Wa-kei-sei-jaku_ "), Shizune said evenly, slowly in Wutaian to no one, savoring each syllable.

 _Shizune._

"That woman has been dead for five years," she said, as if reaffirming a well-known fact.

"I am Rei Kashiwabara."

It was summer in the district of Banshu in the Southern part of Wutai, and the sweltering summer was punctuated by refreshing ocean breezes and the perpetual daytime sound of the cicadas buzzing in bushes and trees. On particularly clear days like this, one can even see the ocean sparkling out to the far horizon and hear the waves crashing against the black volcanic coasts. On such summer days, the winds would blow through the rice fields and you could see the ripple of countless reeds in a shimmering wave of vibrant green. At night, the people of Banshu eschewed the Shinra-provided Mako light strips and instead preferred the light of natural paper lanterns strung up along footpaths and outdoor drinking pubs. The wind of the evening was that of a dark but gentle lullaby, mingled with the sounds of distant, drunken laughter and grasshopper songs.

 _This is Banshu. Wutai. I am Rei Kashiwabara. I own and maintain the cafe called 'Wakeiseijaku.'_

As a former Turk, Shizune had paramount training in disguise and infiltration. The ability to assume any identity on the fly for any purpose was a way of life for a Turk. The mantra she had just recited constituted a means of resetting her identity for a given mission, but it was usually only utilized extensively in the initial phases of mentally establishing a cover identity-not after five years of living in another skin. Shizune raised an eyebrow as she puzzled over this apparent crack in her facade.

 _I was born in Minamikata, Central Wutai_

Her eyes darted around the room, taking silent notice of her surroundings, but something was not right. She found it increasingly harder to focus. This was Rei's room, her room, her unassuming refuge. Just the simple dwelling of a cafe owner. That's all.

 _I am not good at sports. I love poetry. I have never left Wutai._

She could hear the sound of children playing in the distance. Perhaps they were chasing each other again on the hill to the South of her cafe, or screaming at some newly-found insect in the small glen just to the West.

 _Today's special is Northern Style thick matcha._

Something wasn't right. The sounds of the children, the soft touch of the wind, the smell of her futon-all ceased doing and being.

 _It's too hot today for a kimono._

In her memory was the smell of burning scrap metal again.

The mantra wasn't working.

In her mind, she could see it again-Shinra branding her Turk cell as traitors, the hasty escape from Shinra Tower, SOLDIER being deployed to hunt them down, her escape pod falling to the ground as she cast a gravity spell on herself to ease the fall, in turn breaking nearly all of her ribs and pulping a few organs. Five years in hiding.

 _I am Shizune._

* * *

 **OUTSKIRTS OF MIDGAR**

 **DISC 02 - July 2010**

When Shizune woke, the world was sideways. The horizon was vertical. There was a fire smoldering in front of her, about ten meters ahead, the black industrial smoke billowing lazily to the right, into the sky which was not supposed to be where it was. She was lying on the ground on her side, mangled, lacerated, and broken, but painfully alive. The sandy grit of brown earth was in her mouth.

 _It worked,_ she thought ruefully.

Shizune tried to laugh at the absurdity of it, but spat blood instead. Her military training began to reassert itself and she rolled on to her back, righting the view of the sky once more. As she did so, pain flooded her world and she gave a ragged moan. A quick physical assessment indicated to her that she had a broken left arm, several broken ribs, and a concussion, but given her training and her remaining Restore materia, she would be able to manage. The pod had apparently come down outside of Midgar in the wilderness to the West somehow. Given her current view of the tiered city, she judged that she might only be a day's journey from the coast. She knew that Shinra would be tracking it, so she casted a hasty Restore spell to patch up a bit and ease the pain for quick escape and began to distance herself from the pod wreckage. Each weary, hobbled step she took was one farther away from the Turks, Shinra, and her sister.

* * *

 **TOWN OF BANSHU, SOUTHERN WUTAI**

 **DISC 03 - JULY 2015**

"Shizune!" someone had barked accusingly from behind her.

Shizune froze for a fraction of a second, muscles tensing and ready to uncoil murderously in the next moment. It was always strange to hear her own real name being used by others.

"I told you, Shizune," the young Wutaian mother yelled angrily at her toddler daughter, who was clutching a tiny wooden sugar box on the table. The sugar box was upside down in the toddler's hands, and the sugar had spilled everywhere around the table and floor. The mother and daughter were seated by the window of the idyllic Wutaian tea shop cafe, Wa-kei-sei-jaku. It was a sunny, Sunday afternoon.

"Don't touch that anymore! That's it, we are going home right now!"

The little girl wore a yukata a size too big and sported lopsided pigtails that looked like random grass sprouts. She began to scrunch her face up, mouth opening wider until she began to cry and howl.

"Come on, Shizune, let's go. I'm so sorry about this," the young mother said to the waitress.

"Don't worry about it, I'll take care of it, Mrs. Yamanaka. Bye bye, Shizune!" she said to the toddler, stooping lower to smile and wave at the little girl.

The toddler continued her tantrum as the two left the cafe. They had been the only customers left in the cafe on that slow afternoon.

Shizune let out a slow exhale. She closed the door to the cafe slowly and locked the door. She raised her right hand to the back of her head to undo the hair tie, letting her long black flowing hair fall past her shoulders. In the time since she arrived in Banshu, she let her short bob-cut grow out to waist-length every year, then cut it back to shoulder length. As she let her arm fall back down to her side, she clutched at the long scar that snaked from her elbow to her wrist.

 _That was too close,_ Shizune said to herself.

 _You can't go all PTSD every time you hear your old name. There are other people out there named 'Shizune,' too._

After the mother and daughter left, Shizune had closed shop early to ponder her favorite poem, a short Banshu-style poem. Shizune had put a Wutaian calligraphy version of the poem inside the cafe, just above the entrance. It read:

 _One time, one meeting;_

 _This moment only._

 _But for my precious memory,_

 _Spirited away_

 _Upon the summer wind._

Amano, the old woman who works at the market where Shizune buys her powdered tea wholesale, had introduced her to the poem some time ago.

"It means, my dear Rei-chan" (as she was so fond of calling Shizune), that all things in this world are fleeting. Do you know that word?"

"Yes, Amano-san," Shizune had said, smiling coyly. "I think it means, 'temporary'?"

"Good, good" Amano said, nodding her head. "Exactly. You young people worry too much. This poem reminds us that we need to live in the moment. No regrets for lost opportunities. If someone hurts you, forgive them and move on. If a lover spites you-BAH-it's his loss, go find another one!" Amano concluded with a rough cough-chuckle.

Amano's Wutaian was thick with the Banshu dialect, common among the peoples of Southern Wutai. As Rei Kashiwabara, Shizune was spared from having to adopt that rough dialect since her cover identity hailed from the city of Minamikata in Central Wutai, where the Wutaians speak a much more neutral dialect. Still, she found that despite the guttural intonations and hard rolling R's, she was able to pick up the dialect with ease.

The name "Rei Kashiwabara" was also intentionally selected by Shizune as being a horrendously common first/family name for those from Central Wutai. With the gil stash in her escape pod, her skills as an Ace Turk, and a little bit of luck, Shizune had been able to make her way all the way to Wutai relatively without incident. With the remaining gil, she had purchased a small cottage in Banshu a couple of kilometers from shore where she set up her cafe, _Wakeiseijaku._ Though she had only studied it in her university days, Shizune found that Wutaian _Sado_ , or "The Way of Tea" came naturally to her, and so, alongside conventional and modern offerings such as coffee, her cafe also served tea. As was the custom in the small town of Banshu, shop owners would open or close their shops at will, for any number of reasons, ranging from the daily horoscope which was determined by temple Omikuji interpreted by the shrine maidens, all the way up to their own personal dispositions. It was most certainly not uncommon for shop owners in Banshu to close shop on account of the amicable weather and their need to enjoy such weather for themselves. And yet, despite the capriciousness of this supposed "business model," life in Banshu somehow went on.

This suit Shizune just fine, for she could close the shop at any time for virtually any reason, and this helped her to blend in. For as much as she could, Shizune tried to maintain as low a profile as possible, and that meant being unremarkable and normal. It was in that last regard, however, that she had failed-upon first glance, she was evidently in her 30s and still single. Not normal in Banshu at all. And it was on this that Amano had never failed to comment.

But getting married to maintain cover? Sharing a life with someone else was the last thing she wanted to do. Sharing a life with anyone, in any way, always lead to the same thing in the end: a temporary-nay, _fleeting_ -sense of belonging, and sudden, senseless partings. So had it been with her parents, her sister, her beloved Alpha Company, and her family of "rumored" Turks. Shinra, Midgar, SOLDIER-the whole mess of it could burn.

' _One time, one meeting; this moment only,' indeed._ Shizune thought as she stared at the poem above her door, the curves of the Wutaian calligraphy of each word familiar in some mysterious way. She loved everything about this poem. In an effort to bolster her Wutaian cover, she even went so far as to imitate this style of writing in her own handwriting.

The poem had apparently been written about 40 years prior by a woman named Yae Nagase. Though not the most well-renowned poets of her time, Nagase's career was cut short by her untimely death at the young age of 22. That was all that Shizune could find out about the artist who created her favorite Banshu short poem. For the former Turk, head of the Research and Logistics Division, this was a woefully inadequate amount of information. But those appellations were several lifetimes ago, and Shizune wasn't Shizune anymore.

 _What I know about this poem is enough,_ Shizune thought to herself.

Though she didn't believe that.

A sudden knock on the door startled Shizune.

It took her a few moments to re-center, to pick herself out of those accursed ruminations, out of the serial acknowledgments of a past that Zero Protocol mandated was to be forgotten and never referenced again.

There was a second set of knocks on the door.

 _Rei Kashiwabara,_ Shizune said to herself.

"Yes?" she called from behind the door.

"Hey, are you guys open?" said a male voice from the other side of the door. His voice was that of a whimsical young man, and his Wutaian pronunciation was atrocious. A sailor from one of the shipping vessels, most likely. A few sometimes ended up this far inland while on shore leave.

"I'm sorry," Shizune said, "I just closed up for the day."

"Aw, really?" the young man said, managing to sound actually incredulous. "Well, I'll make it worth your while with a bunch of good stories and a big tip"

"There's no tipping in Wutai," Shizune said politely.

"I know," the man said, "but I heard this place as excellent tea, and I don't know when I'll be back in Banshu. Banshu's known for its tea, right?"

Shizune unlocked the door and opened it. In the doorway stood bearded man in gray utility coveralls and a matching lidded cap. The patch on his left shoulder and cap bore the ubiquitous mark of the Shinra Electric Power Company, and the patch on his right shoulder was a stylized anchor with an Anglerfish on it, apparently the personal heraldry of whatever vessel he worked on. He had something that looked like stubble trying to be a beard, and Shizune couldn't tell if it was an intentional fashion choice or a lack of grooming discipline. He smiled nervously, his eyes creasing in the bright blue Wutaian summer daylight.

"Alright," Shizune said, "but you're the last one for today."

"Exultant!" the young man declared again with his horrible Wutaian pronunciation. The word choice was also odd. Shizune guessed that the man had meant to say "Excellent."

"Welcome to _Wakeiseijaku_ ," Shizune said, gesturing to a table by one of the open windows. "Right this way."

The sailor wasted no time entering the quaint cafe with white stone walls on the interior, adorned sparingly with Shizune's favorite poems and Wutaian manners of speech.

After the sailor sat down, he removed his work cap, tossing it unceremoniously on the table and rapidly ruffling his dark brown hair with both his hands as if shaking off stress. He made a sound that was a cross between a growl and a yawn. It was loud and vulgar. It reminded Shizune of a dog.

"Sure is dark in here," the sailor said, blinking his eyes.

"The natural light is enough, especially in the summer," Shizune explained. "It must have been a bit of walk from the harbor to here, so I imagine it will take your eyes a little while to adjust to our ambiance."

"Um," the sailor said with a nervous smile creasing his eyes into happy slits. "Sorry, I'm still studying Wutaian, can you say that slowly?" he said with a conclusory chuckle.

"Of course, my apologies," Shizune said. "It's very bright in Southern Wutai in the summer, so your eyes-"

"YES!" the sailor blurted out suddenly, making Shizune jump. "Sorry, I mean, yeah, I get it. Sorry, I'm just excited that I understand what you're saying."

Shizune laughed nervously. "I'll be right back, but please look at the menu there and give me a call when you are ready to order."

"Oh, uh, I kind of already know what I want-can I have your daily special tea? Cap'n said this place had a thing where, you know, different tea every week, all of em are good, he said."

Shizune feigned a flattered expression, hoping that she was blushing. "Well, yes, we happen to be serving Northern Style thick matcha as today's special. It's very bitter and not the typical consistency of tea, is that alright?"

"Yes, ma'am, by all means," the sailor said. "I'm always up for something new, and the Cap'n is never wrong about a place to eat or drink."

Shizune gave a curt bow. "Very well then, I will return shortly with your tea. By the way, who is your captain?"

"Captain Mizune Shai of the shipping freighter _The Crimson Lady._ "

Shizune's blood ran cold, but her body reacted on instinct.

In a single, underhanded arcing swipe of her outstretched left arm, Shizune had snatched up two extra cake forks from her cafe apron and launched them both directly at the sailor's unguarded eyes. In the next fraction of a second, her right hand unholstered her concealed pistol and she triple-tapped the man at point blank range-two rounds in center mass, one in the head.

The crack of the gunfire hung ringing in the air for a long second.

"I had a feeling you would do that," the man said, somewhat exasperated.

His head was tilted lazily to the side, and he had evidently dodged the round aimed at his head. In his right hand were the two forks Shizune had thrown at him, caught between his outstretched fingers just behind the prongs, meaning he had caught them in mid-flight _and then_ dodged the bullet. He brushed his chest off with his left hand and two flattened 9mm rounds fell to the wooden floor of the cafe with dull knocking thuds. Shizune was about to fire again, but the man shrugged and said, "Really? You don't recognize me?"

Shizune had meant to fire again anyway, but before her finger could squeeze down on the hair trigger of her pistol, she saw past the stupid beard and accent.

"What. Are. You. Doing. Here?" Shizune said, each word separated by space for emphasis. She still had her gun trained on the sailor.

"I thought we could hang out and talk about old times. Drink tea and eat cheesecake together."

"How did you find me?" Shizune asked evenly but firmly.

"Oh god, Shizune, that's going to take forever to explain."

Shizune winced at hearing her old name used to actually address herself. She flared her nostrils and exhaled sharply in frustration.

"Since we are being sloppy and simply blurting out names, I'll say it again–what in the hell are you doing here, Riwin Koucha?"

"How about getting the band back together?" Riwin said with the Devil's smile.


	3. File 02 - Black Tea

**TOWN OF BANSHU, SOUTHERN WUTAI**

 **WAKEISEIJAKU TEA HOUSE & CAFE**

 **DISC 03 - JULY 2015**

"What. Are. You. Doing. Here." Shizune said, each word deliberately separated by space for emphasis.

She still had her gun trained on the sailor in gray coveralls who was seated by the window of her idyllic cafe, and her face was framed on either side by long, flowing locks of raven-black hair parted in the center. Aside from the gun which she aimed expertly at the sailor, she was dressed as a typical Wutaian cafe worker-relaxed-fit restaurant worker shirt with sleeves ending at just past the elbow and pants of subdued shades of brown hung loosely from her lithe frame. An apron covered most of the front of her outfit, a stylized chubby cat face embroidery just above the front breast pocket which made it look as though it were peeking out at the world. Shizune's expression was as blank as the white fabric napkins which were meticulously placed at every seating, betraying none of the shock that was wildly misfiring in her mind.

Though the sailor sported a pseudo beard, a new dark tan complexion, and a laughable command of Wutaian, she had finally recognized the man as Riwin Koucha, a former Ace Turk from her old Turk unit, all of whom were exiled as enemies of the state by Shinra High Command five years prior. She had recognized him alright-that is, after he positively identified her by name and she had fired on him thrice at point-blank range. Being that she was a former Ace Turk herself, she did not miss her mark. Being that Riwin was also of the same stock, he was unscathed. A light summer wind disturbed the thin white curtain by the window making the sunlight dance over the wooden table.

Riwin shrugged as if nothing had happened. "I thought we could hang out and talk about old times. Drink tea and eat cheesecake together."

" _How did you find me?_ " Shizune asked evenly but firmly.

"Oh god, Shizune, that's going to take forever to explain."

Shizune winced at hearing her old name used to actually address herself. She flared her nostrils and exhaled sharply in frustration.

"Since we are being sloppy and simply blurting out names, I'll say it again–what in the hell are you doing here, Riwin Koucha?"

"How about getting the band back together?" Riwin said with the Devil's smile.

* * *

 **MIDGAR**

 **SHINRA TOWER, 66TH FLOOR**

 **DISC 02 - MAY 2005**

"You smile too much," Evan said. "Don't let her see that."

Riwin walked behind his commanding officer, wrinkling his nose in protest. "Yes, ma'am."

"Your words say yes, while your face still causes problems," Evan said.

"How did you even see that?" Riwin asked, flabbergasted.

"Because it's me."

Evan and Riwin strode purposefully down the hallway of the 66th floor in their suits, their footsteps echoing up from the marble floors and against the postmodern blankness of the reinforced steel corridor walls made to look like the office fiberglass of the walls of the other floors of the building. Despite his obvious height advantage, Riwin always found it odd that he had to make an actual effort to match Evan's stride. They stopped at a door labeled "Break Room." Evan put her hands in her pockets and stared at the opaque door, though to Riwin it looked almost as though she was staring _through_ the door at the occupant inside.

"Koucha."

"Yes, ma'am?"

"Her actual training begins today. Go through the Disc 1 skillset module, make sure she becomes expertly proficient with her new talents. That much should be standard, run-of-the-mill stuff. However, as for the Disc 2..."

Evan trailed off into silence for a few moments.

"Ma'am?" Riwin asked, tentatively.

"Everyone who comes into this organization is different," Evan said, still staring ahead. "The way that Valerick trained you for Disc 2-when you were still pretty and useless-will not really work with anyone else. You'll have to observe how she handles assignments first, then amend the Disc 2 training accordingly. The best Turks are the ones who not only gain new skills, but who also have their existing skills refined beyond reckoning. And I don't abide anyone but the best in my unit. Do you understand?"

Riwin nodded curtly. "Yes, ma'am."

"Then repeat it back to me in your own words."

Riwin cleared his throat, though he regretted it the moment he did. "For Disc 1, she gets the new skills like usual. For Disc 2, I am to adjust the training regimen to her strengths."

"Incorrect," Evan said. "For Disc 2, you are to adjust the regimen to _enhance_ her strengths."

Riwin nodded his assent silently, but Evan could sense the disappointment behind the gesture.

"Here," Evan said, "think of it this way: you're a strategist, right?"

"That's why you hired me," Riwin said with a hint of pride.

"Good. Then strategize her training as though she were a puzzle to be solved, a game to be cleared. Per her file and what we have seen of her thus far, we know that she's a protocol hound who moonlights as a hacker. We'll deal with the latter part eventually, but for now, for Disc 1, focus on getting her to think more fluidly, as you do. Remain a step ahead of her. Readjust the parameters mid-game, observe, repeat, then move on."

"Can do, Boss," Riwin said with a firm head nod. "By the time we're done with Disc 1, she'll be sufficiently adaptable, no worries on that at all."

Riwin saw that Evan was grinning for but a split-second.

"What's so funny?" Riwin asked nervously.

Evan gave a quick nasal exhale that might have been a laugh.

"She's old Alpha blood. I wouldn't be surprised if she pulled a gun on you during the festivities to come."

Evan turned to leave and began walking briskly to the elevator.

Riwin raised an eyebrow. "I'm old Alpha blood, too, remember?"

Evan boarded the elevator, her back still turned to Riwin. "And good at your old job, as I also recall," Evan said over her shoulder. "But you weren't _that_ psycho," she added as the elevator doors slid silently closed.

Riwin shrugged in acceptance as he keyed the door open.

"Hey girl," he said to Shizune, who was seated at what looked like a police interrogation table. The suit she now wore was an echo of Riwin's, the dark tones somehow effusing both and security and danger all at once. Seeing the former commander of the infamous Alpha Company in the Turk suit was surreal, Riwin thought, and it was made even more so by the fact that underneath the crimson facemask that Shizune was most known for, she actually had a real face-one that was easy on the eyes, to boot. The new suit was also an unusual thing for her to be wearing, but it somehow fit. More prominent than her suit, however, was the perpetual scowl Shizune wore. _Yeah, that's Alpha, alright,_ Riwin thought.

"Don't you 'Hey-girl' me." Shizune spat.

Riwin put his hands up as if to assume no guilt. "Whoa, no need to get all snappy, I just want to talk. Let's get out of here for a bit though? I hate talking in places with a shitty view," Riwin said, trying to subdue the smile he knew was already beginning to form on his face.

"How about it?"

* * *

 **WAKEISEIJAKU TEA HOUSE & CAFE**

 **DISC 03 - JULY 2015**

"No," Shizune said, flatly.

"Well, ok, wait, hold on," Riwin said in rapid succession. He had put his hands up again as a half-apologetic gesture. "You didn't even hear me out," Riwin said, jokingly hurt.

"I heard you just fine," Shizune said. "You asked if we could reunite the unit."

"Yeah, and then we cou-"

"And I'm saying that that's not going to happen," Shizune interrupted.

"What? You'd rather keep playing waitress here in the, the… the valley of wind?" Riwin asked mockingly, gesturing absurdly to the curtains gently swaying beside him.

Shizune's expressionless facade faltered for a fraction of a moment, the twitch of an eyebrow all the evidence Riwin needed to continue his advance.

Shizune began, "Boss' Zero Protocol dictates that-"

" _-after exile and successful egress,_ " Riwin interrupted, in the bored voice of an automaton, " _We're not to have contact with each other under any circumstances._ "

Riwin stopped smiling and fixed Shizune with an earnest gaze. "And yet, here I am, asking for help from an old comrade."

The silence of the next moment was interrupted only by the sound of a foghorn blaring in the far distance, and the sound of trees rustling in the Wutaian summer wind. Shizune lowered her gun, but all of the seriousness of the past few minutes remained in her eyes.

"We paint a larger target on all our backs by grouping together," Shizune said robotically as if to re-explain the situation to someone she knew for a fact understood as well as she did that this proposition was beyond perilous.

"Just hear me out."

Shizune shifted her gaze to the open window. "No."

"Come on, Shiz!" Riwin said louder than he intended to. "Don't make me pull rank on you, my former _padawan._ "

Shizune's eye's darted back to Riwin in that moment, a look of irritated confusion marked upon them.

"What?" Shizune said.

Riwin took a mental step back.

" _PA-DA-WAN_ ," Riwin said again, over-enunciating the strange word. "Isn't that the Wutaian word for ' _student'_ or ' _protege'_?"

"No."

"Well, that's what I meant, OK!?" Riwin shouted.

Shizune made a strange noise that sounded like a cross between a cough and a snort. She holstered her gun, pulled the chair out opposite Riwin, and sat down, hands balled up into fists but placed on her lap.

"You're hopeless," Shizune said. "I forgot that about you."

Riwin smiled, shrugging in acknowledgement.

"You look so weird being all prim and proper like a real Wutaian lady," Riwin said like a joking indictment.

"You look like shit," Shizune countered. "Besides, you couldn't even pull rank on me if you tried."

"Fine," Riwin said, "But you still owe me."

"For what?" Shizune said.

Riwin raised an admonishing finger and looked Shizune in the eyes.

" _Operation: Red Shadow_."

* * *

 **OPERATION: RED SHADOW**

 **SHINRA TOWER, MIDGAR**

 **DISC 02 - AUGUST 2005**

Evan's face was lit by the sterile, pale-green glow of the security monitors, her expression all business. An array of 9 monitors was arranged in a square in front of her, each monitor displaying a different view of the Shinra Tower Lobby. Evan was seated at an instrument panel in front of the monitors. With her arms folded in front of her, she tapped her left elbow with her right index finger in perfect syncopation with the clock's second hand. A moment later, the door in the back of the room slid open swiftly with the iron-slam of a heavy lock and the hiss of auto-hydraulics, flooding the room with momentary light. Valerick entered the surveillance center, ducking into the doorway and standing again to his full height once inside. The door slid closed behind him and he took up position to Evan's right, folding his hands behind his back. Evan's blonde hair took on an ethereal glow as it slightly reflected the light coming from the security monitors, and Valerick's violet eyes looked like the white pupils of a reverse color image when reflecting that same light. The buzz and click of the MP channel radio back chatter punctuated the silence between them.

"Koucha's devised some kind of variant on the typical disguise test," Evan said.

Valerick raised an eyebrow. "Oh? What sort of mess has he tried to pass off as an operational mission?"

"So apparently," Evan began, "Shizune is supposed to acquire an official Midgar City I.D. from Shinra Prime itself, tower lobby, without getting recognized, which will be a slight pain in the ass, because today will be crawling with Shinra Paramilitary Corps High Command who are there to inspect Alpha Company."

A smile slowly crept across Valerick's thin lips like a chasm forming over hell. "Alpha Company Commander Chanceton Vega'll be there, no doubt."

"Right," Evan said, "as will Lt. Colonel Langley and Major Oris of Special Forces."

"Riwin came up with this?" Valerick asked incredulously.

"Yup," Evan said. "That boy can surprise sometimes, you know."

"All of Shizune's favorite people in one room. And her former company, all of whom idolize her. And she's supposed to maintain cover? Alright boy, I'll give you some credit on this one," Valerick rumbled.

"It gets better," Evan said. "She's supposed to get the I.D. from Captain Vega himself."

Valerick chuckled, the sound like bones grinding.

"Riwin Koucha, you are a motherfucker," Valerick said with pride.

Valerick looked at the clock on the opposite wall. "We're at just over T-minus 60 seconds."

"Very well," Evan said. "Let's see if she can become the butterfly we all know she can be."

"She's too rigid for this," Valerick said with some finality to it. "She can't pull this cover off, it's too volatile for what she's shown us. She should have chosen an alias that was easier to manage. Less loose ends."

"Hmph," Evan said. "She might surprise us yet. Besides, I have what, 1000 gil riding on her success."

"No offense, Boss, but you're losing that bet. I'm eating 1st class, black market Zolom tonight."

"You'd share that with me, anyway," Evan said.

Valerick raised his eyebrows in concession. "Fair enough."

Some movement on the outer lobby cam made both of the Turks straighten up.

"Alright," Evan said with some relish. "Let's see if she can act. I know Riwin is playing his old Alpha self, but Shizune is posing as the civilian she made up…whatsername..." Evan trailed off, lost in thought.

Valerick produced a small tablet device and began finger-scrolling rapidly.

"Monica Kim," Valerick answered.

* * *

"WOW, LOOK AT THAT!" Monica exclaimed as she ran gracelessly over to the opposite desk. Her voice was that of a vacant-minded debutante with all the grace of a broken refrigerator compressor, and she dressed the part, too. Monica wore a black lacy thing that looked like the second-hand wedding dress of a rock star wife from the wrong decade. Clad in thigh-high stockings and knee-high black leather boots, Monica effused a confused shade of sexy. To top it all off, she wore an outlandishly large witch hat, the point of which drooped lazily behind her.

As she gazed around the Shinra Tower Lobby, oo-ing and ah-ing at everything, her smile came across as genuinely curious. Her eyes, wide for a Wutaian (or part-Wutaian, according to Monica's file), were a light shade of brown. As if to spite the classic beauty of her face at large, a jagged scar cut a path downwards on Monica's right eye. Though it was awfully out of place, the scar did nothing to diminish her insane brand of non-sequitur charm. Or so Shizune had thought when she designed and proposed this cover disguise. Monica marveled aloud at everything in the Shinra lobby, her head swiveling this way and that, making her sombrero-sized witch hat flop back and forth.

Despite the fact that Monica seemed to be deeply interested in everything around her, she herself had become the center of attention for a very different audience.

Assembled opposite of Monica, facing outwards towards the front of the lobby in parade dress and in perfect formation was the entirety of Shinra Military Police's finest-the infamous Alpha Company. A hundred souls in total, all helmed in the same ubiquitous tri-lens pattern helmet, the trademark of the Shinra Paramilitary. All stood at rigid attention. All were fully armed. All were crimson clad.

At the head of the company formation was a beast of a man. At 8' 8" and approximately 500 pounds, Alpha Company Commanding Officer, Captain Chanceton "CJ" Vega was a cyclopean mountain of smoldering menace, clad in wrought-iron armor plating which, while inspired by the same fundamental design as the rest of the MP corps, was obviously tailored to this behemoth and furthermore sported stylized overlapping plating of a darker hue than the rest of the rank and file. This scalloping of his armor not only provided added protection, but also lent him the appearance of the Golem Shogun of Wutaian legend.

Captain Vega, more commonly known in the rest of Midgar as _The War Beast_ , had an artillery cannon slung across his back as though it were a standard carbine. The long barrel of the weapon had its name, _TERMINUS EST_ painted along its length. Given his unbelievable size, the weapon was certainly scaled correctly to Captain Vega. Secured at his right thigh in custom tactical rigging was a revolving grenade launcher which Vega had dubbed _Mathilda_. He was known for using this terrifying secondary weapon as a sidearm. Lastly, secured to the small of this back horizontally in a Zolom-skin sheath was his custom machete, _Persuasion_ , the blade of which was rumored to have been fashioned from a titanium sheet that had been removed from his chest after barely surviving a carpet bombing attack during the Wutaian War. As a martial asset to Shinra, Vega was physically implacable. As a force of nature, he was destruction incarnate. As the commanding officer of Alpha Company, he was resolute.

Captain Vega fixed his single, void-black eye on the loud young woman who suddenly burst into the Shinra Tower Lobby. He growled irritation, though to those around him the sound was that of impending tectonic cataclysm.

Monica glanced at Captain Vega, making an extra effort to avoid eye contact. Seeing her former Executive Officer now clad in his full regalia as Alpha Company Commander filled her black heart with a surging pride that threatened to burst her at the seams, or at the very least make her crack a crooked smile. She had wanted to look him in his eye and invoke the Alpha Company cadence. All of which would blow her cover as airhead Monica Kim. She refocused herself on the mantra Riwin had taught her in order to re-establish mental cover.

 _I am Monica Kim. Stupidly-idealistic novelist. Rocket Town. Needs an I.D. today._

Vega growled again, the rumbling bass resonating through the lobby like a dragon about to wake. On any other day, he'd send her away. But for reasons beyond his paygrade, the brass wanted to do a public inspection of Alpha Company. He had guessed it was due to their atrocious public image and some leech from public relations had concocted the idea that doing these kinds of meaningless, ceremonial gestures would convince the people that Alpha Company wasn't dangerous. Vega began to speak.

"What," he began, his voice dark and uninviting, "do you want?"

To her credit, Shizune as Monica feigned a startled jump punctuated with a believable squeak of surprise.

"Hi Shinra man, I just want an I.D…." Monica says in a faint voice made even more frail by the empty echo of the lobby.

"Can you," Vega began, but paused as he clenched his teeth in frustration, "come back tomorrow. Please," he seemed to add, as if remembering what it was to be polite.

"Sir, I can do it!" a voice from the back row of Alpha Company resounded.

Vega turned immediately behind to see who had said that. Upon recognizing the soldier, he exhaled a blast of air from his nostrils in frustration.

"Koucha," Vega said. "Hurry it up, I want this done before High Command gets here. Are we clear?"

"As a bell, sir."

A fully-armed Alpha Company MP jogged briskly to the front of the lobby. Riwin Koucha, Turk by night and Alpha Company MP by day, was inexplicably unrecognizable. He made no outlandish changes to his face, but there was something about the whole-the way he moved, the way he gestured and spoke, the way he _felt_ -it all contributed to Shizune not immediately recognizing this chameleon who was her Turk trainer.

"Right this way, ma'am" Riwin said to Monica as he gestured to the lobby console where a secretary usually sat.

Monica looked more and more nervous by the second, and was making strange worry wimpers as she moved closer to the console. "Just a moment!" she suddenly blurted out, now fishing through her purse for something.

"Ma'am," Riwin began, "you won't need anything for this process, we'll just start wit-"

A fake plastic bat prop dangled from a conspicuous black elastic bungee affixed to Monica's finger via a cheap plastic ring. She bobbed it up and down and the rubber wings flapped ridiculously. As she looked intently at the bat, Monica was mouthing the words "flap-flap-flap" under her breath. In a squeaky, strained voice, she exclaimed, "BAAAAT-WAAAAAYYYYNE~!"

The only sound that peppered the awkward silence of the next few moments was Monica's steady "flap-flap-flap" mouthed sound effects.

Riwin's eyes were wide with horror. Shizune had not informed him of this, "Bat-Wayne" at all. And so, the shock on his face was not only that of his cover identity but of his actual being.

"GET HER DONE AND OUT OF HERE!" Vega sent over the Alpha vox link to Riwin, but the fact that he was yelling in the Shinra lobby made the gesture towards discretion meaningless. Riwin winced as the ear bud he used for coms audio rang with feedback. He gave a thumbs up gesture to Vega and the rest of Alpha Company and started typing as fast as he could on the console.

An angry error noise issued from the console. Riwin typed as fast as he could again, and the same noise issued.

"Um, Captain Vega," Riwin said gingerly, "The lobby consoles are locked out from general use. Vermillion-level only."

The entire time, Monica was continuing her flap-flap sound effects. She looked curiously up at Riwin and, still in the squeaky bat voice, began to talk.

"I'm Bat-Wayne, and I'm here to calm Monica down because she gets nervous easily!"

To his credit, Riwin answered Bat-Wayne without missing a beat.

"Please, not right now, I-"

"And I needs me an I.D., too!" Monica said in the Bat-Wayne voice. "I was born in-"

Before either of them knew what was happening, there was a loud thud and a sudden, violent displacement of air. Monica screamed and Riwin was on the ground, sitting on his rear. Captain Vega towered over both of them, somehow having cleared the several meters between where he was standing a moment ago and the front reception console.

"Get back in formation before I throw you there!" Vega shouted at Riwin, who summarily jumped to his feet and sprinted back into line.

"As for you," he said, glowering at Monica, "we don't have time for this. Citizen-you _will_ cease these antics and tell me exactly what I need to know…"

The corner's of Monica's mouth turn downward so sharply it looks as though her frown might go past the bottom of her face, if that were even possible. Monica laughed nervously and forced a smile as tears began to well up in her eyes. Out of sheer nervousness, she began to spin the plastic bat around her finger, rapidly picking up speed. By some trick of fate or function of Monica's inherent clumsiness, the ring holding the bat flew off her finger and the rubber bat went sailing behind her further into the lobby. With a squeak, it bounced harmlessly off of the helmet of an Alpha Company Sergeant in the front row.

Monica gasped in shock and embarrassment, but attempted to cover it up by suddenly exclaiming "FLY AS HIGH AS THE SUN!"

* * *

 **WAKEISEIJAKU TEA HOUSE & CAFE**

 **DISC 03 - JULY 2015**

Riwin was making comical little flapping gestures with his fingers. "I'm Bat Wayne? Fly as high as the sun? Seriously, Shizune?"

"Fuck you. It worked," Shizune said gently, lady-like, as if mocking her Wutaian cover now.

"You owe me for that, at least," Riwin said, "and you know it."

"You didn't do anything, you just made CJ walk over there."

"CJ" was Vega's nickname, and Shizune was the only person he had let call him that.

"I owe you a boot out the door for good when you're done being nostalgic. You're going to blow my goddamn cover," Shizune said.

"And what exactly are you supposed to be? A cheesecake lady?"

"Shut up."

"I saw the menu," Riwin said, knowingly. "It's on there."

"I said shut up."

"And hey," Riwin said, "I don't mean to change the subject or anything, but WHY ARE YOU TRYING TO KILL ME ANYWAY?"

"I thought you were a sweeper!" Shizune said, wide-eyed

"And I thought you saw through this stupid cover," Riwin said, gesturing with both hands to his outfit and beard.

"You straight up dropped two of my past monikers down like you were trying to be cool before the kill," Shizune said, flatbrowed.

" _I thought we were having witty banter amongst former Turks!_ "

"Fine, I'm sorry!" Shizune yelled back, flabbergasted.

Riwin looked out the window, the afternoon sun darkened a few shades as a large white cloud crossed its path. "Come on, don't you like your old names? Any of 'em?"

The two former agents sat at the table in silence. Shizune's face bore a reluctant Mona-Lisa smile-the rumor of a distant, happy memory.

"What the hell do you think?" Shizune said flatly, but Riwin could hear the ghost of regret there, too. "But Boss' Zero Protocol is absolute."

"Is it?" Riwin asked.

"Do you remember nothing from that meeting?" Shizune asked seriously.

* * *

 **MIDEEL**

 **TURKS SAFEHOUSE #24: POCO-POCO CANTINA BASEMENT**

 **DISC 02 - JANUARY 2009**

"No deviations, no substitutions, no excuses" Evan said, arms folded across her chest. She was standing at the end of a long onyx meeting table. The projector holoscreen behind her was populated by maps of Midgar and the surrounding areas as well as dossiers, redacted documents, and photos of random locations. Save for the light of the holoscreen, the room was pitch black. "After exile and successful egress, you are not to have contact with each other under any circumstances _._ This proposed Zero Protocol is absolute."

The lights of the room came back on as soon as the holoscreen projection ended. Seated around the table were the members of Evan's unit, Turk Cell R0-414: Valerick Goodliffe, Riwin Koucha, and Shizune Mai.

"Any questions?" Evan said.

Riwin raised his hand.

"Why are you raising your hand?" Valerick smirked.

"What?" Riwin said, "I just want to be nice."

Valerick rolled his eyes and leaned back further in the leather office chair, making the chair groan and creak under his muscled weight.

"Go ahead," Evan said.

"So," Riwin began, "if like, hypothetically-speaking, 'cause we would never have to suddenly flee Midgar, but you know, just in case-you made this protocol so we could get away safely and securely, I get that…"

There was a silence as Riwin seemed to be staring at the corner of the ceiling, lost in thought or apparently trying to phrase his next question in a way that didn't earn him the ire of the commander.

"What is it, Koucha?" Evan said, her voice tinged with impatience.

"I mean," Riwin began again, "it looks pretty solid, Boss. I'm just wondering where's the 2nd Disc of this plan?"

Shizune looked obviously frustrated. "What the crap are you talking about, Riwin? That _was_ the whole plan, there is no 2nd Disc."

"Really though?" Riwin said, exasperated. "You mean, we don't regroup afterwards and get revenge or anything?"

"No," Evan said cooly. "We don't."

"Begging your pardon, ma'am, but why the fuck not?" Riwin said.

"We paint a larger target on all our backs by grouping together." Evan said.

"Furthermore," Shizune added, "without the infrastructure and logistical support of Shinra proper, we would all be doomed to a dismal success rate if we were to counterstrike."

"Oh, come on!" Riwin exclaimed. "Val, you gotta have something to say about regrouping afterwards, right?"

Valerick scratched the back of his head and closed his eyes as he thought, a habit he only did when in the company of his fellow Turks. Shizune had observed that this was perhaps evidence that he finally trusted her, as he now did it in her presence as well.

"The Boss is right," he said, eyes still closed.

Evan put her slender hands inside of her pockets. "Koucha," she began, "I'm not going to order you _not_ to pursue retribution. After Zero Protocol is enacted-if it ever comes to that-I will not be your commander any more. I won't be anyone's commander anymore." Evan took a moment to look each of her Turks in the eye before continuing.

"You'll all be free agents. Masterless. Whether you want to pursue vengeance afterwards will be your prerogative, but know that this protocol is designed to protect, not to re-muster for a counter-offensive." Evan concluded.

"And since we are erased from the Shinra InfoNet," Shizune said, "it will literally be as though we never existed. Our biometric data, company history, any photographic files, everything-it will all be digitally incinerated. Given our skills and their lack of resources, Shinra wouldn't be able to find us if they tried. But the escape remains airtight so long as we do not bunch together."

Riwin threw his hands in the air in resignation.

"Right, so like, for example, if they ever made a video game about Shinra and Midgar, then it would include everyone EXCEPT us? That's. Fucking. Lame! Who's gonna be the star of THAT game, I wonder? What, the new guys, Reno and Rude? They can't even do anything. Oh, oh, how about AVALANCHE and rogue SOLDIERS!? Let's just throw in furries while we're at it!? I mean why the fuck not-that's just like how it really is, right!? NO. Fucking ridiculous! I wouldn't play that fucking game! I hate that game!"

Everyone laughed.

Valerick's laughter was the baritone of someone who rarely ever did so.

Shizune's laughter was honest and she even wiped tears from her eyes with the ends of her sleeves.

Evan's laugh was like the celebration of the mischievous girl who always new what to do and when to do it.

Riwin was frowning at everyone, apparently angry that they were all laughing at his idea, but eventually he gave in to a laughter that came all too naturally to the man who was too fond of smiling.

It was the last time they had all laughed together like that.

* * *

 **WAKEISEIJAKU TEA HOUSE & CAFE**

 **DISC 03 - JULY 2015**

Riwin and Shizune sat in silence, the laughter of that memory echoing a secret pain inside that they both shared.

"I _do_ remember," Riwin said finally. "I remember everything. I remember it all. And that's why I can't give it up. Not like that. Not the way it ended."

Riwin looked hard into Shizune's naturally blue eyes.

"I know you feel the same way," he said. "You pretend you don't, but I know you do. And that makes sense, Shiz, I get that. Clinging to protocol, that's always been a part of who you've been ever since I've known you. But just as much as I know you, you also know me. I know you understand why I am here, why I have to at least _try_ to get you on board."

Shizune said in silence for a long while.

 _I am Rei Kashiwabara._

"You're just as conflicted about it as I am, I know it," Riwin said. "I've been there. I have tried to just be the sailor named Argus Takenaka, humble and clumsy boatswain of the shipping freighter _Anko Dancer._ I did my mantras daily, several times in a day. But you know what happened to me at night?"

Shizune didn't answer. She tried to keep her expression blank.

 _I own and maintain the cafe called 'Wakeiseijaku.'_

"I remembered all of you," Riwin said.

 _I am not good at sports. I love poetry._

"And you know," Riwin continued, "I remembered what we were all capable of. When we got together," he said, punching a fist into his other hand, "we could change everything."

 _I have never left Wutai._

Riwin and Shizune sat in silence a while longer while the wind trickled in gently from the window. Just as Shizune was about to say something, Riwin snatched his grey sailors cap up from the table and stood promptly.

"Hey girl," he said, reaching into his left breast pocket and producing two photographs. He slid both of them across the table, face down.

"Here," Riwin said with a smile.

Shizune gingerly flipped both photos over.

One of the photos was a photo of Unit R0-414. They were all seated at the bar and everyone had their heads turned at an angle to the camera. Everyone except Shizune was smiling, and seeing this now ironically made Shizune smile. The other photo was much older. It was faded, and looked to have been a re-colorized black and white image. The photo was of a young Wutaian woman in traditional kimono. She wore a sad expression. Shizune's gaze fixed on the woman's face.

She looked exactly like her.

"So, about these," Riwin said, "I'm lending you that group photo-that one is my personal photo, and I'm coming back to reclaim that when the _Anko Dancer_ is back in Banshu port next month, ok?"

Shizune nodded blankly, still staring at her doppelganger in the older photo.

"As for that one," Riwin said, pointing at the photo of the Wutaian woman, "That is something I lifted from the Cap'n's quarters. See, he likes poetry like you do. And this woman, her name is Yae Nagase."

Riwin pointed at the poem above the door.

"Cap'n's a big fan of this poet. He knows all about her. She was from here, in Banshu you know? And she was married to a famous blacksmith, Junichiro Nagase, who if I'm not mistaken has a shrine named after him not too far from this shop. See, here's the thing, Cap'n said that Yae had died while giving birth to twins about 30 to 40 years ago."

Riwin leaned in closer.

"From what I recall, you're about in your mid thirties. You look just like her. And you're adopted, right? You're obviously Wutaian by ethnicity."

Despite herself, tears began to well up in Shizune's eyes. _No!_ she thought to herself, _this is flimsy evidence, don't just believe this…_

"Look," Riwin said, straightening up to leave again, "I know you said you don't want to get the group together again, and I can respect your decision. But for now, just think about it. And as for that photo of the poet, please keep that. It's for you, from me. I'll be back in town in a month, and I'll come back to see you. Hopefully you'll still be here at this wonderful place. If you still want to be cheesecake lady in the valley of wind, I won't fight you on that. But if you want to get back to being who you were meant to be-the greatest scientific mind and secret agent on the planet-then let's fucking do this," Riwin concluded with a firm nod.

Riwin reached the door, opened it, and stepped out into the Wutaian sun. He fixed his hat over his scruffy hair and turned to look over his shoulder. Shizune was still seated at the table, staring at the photo of the young woman.

"I'll see you in a month, Shizune."

And with that, he closed the door.

And then Shizune really cried.


	4. File 03 - Shrine of the Blacksmith

**SHINRA TOWER, MIDGAR**

 **MILITARY POLICE BARRACKS, 40th FLOOR**

 **DISC 02 - JULY 2010**

Captain Stellato Noctis-Debesa, Commanding Officer of the Shinra Military Police's Charlie Company stood before the door to the conference room. With her tri-lens helmet in the crook of her left arm, she reached for the I.D. card on her duty belt. She looked at the photo on the I.D., an old habit she was barely aware of. Stellato's photo from 3 years prior stared back-a short crop of unkempt, midnight-black hair framed a comely face. Her eyes were the blue of sapphires in sunlight. The grave expression she always seemed to wear wreathed those sapphires in shadow.

She touched her I.D. to the card reader beside the door. As the tally light above the reader shifted from red to green, the heavy steel door to the conference room slid open. Already seated at the horseshoe-shaped conference table was Alpha Company Commander, Captain Chanceton Vega, although, given his gargantuan size, he sat as tall as most men stood. The fluorescent ceiling light of the conference room was an ovular halo that tinted everything in it a pale, sterile green. Stellato took her place beside Vega and sat down, nodding once to acknowledge Vega. If he had even taken notice of the acknowledgement was unknown-Vega sat as still as a statue. Moments later the door slid open again and Bravo Company Captain Argyle Thule and Paramilitary Commander, General Zedrick LaVend filed in. Upon seeing Zedrick, both Stellato and Vega stood to attention.

"As you were," Zedrick said, his voice noticeably more subdued than usual. Clad in a pitch black version of the Shinra High Command uniform, General Zedrick LaVend was a paragon of martial authority. His service record was classified, but all who served under him knew the veracity of his veteran status, which was most evident whenever he was addressing those in his command. Today, he spoke in the hint of a tone that Stellato had heard before in other warriors. In lesser warriors. As if what he had to say somehow diminished who he was.

"SOLDIER is mobilizing for an immediate operation," Zedrick began, "and the MP corps are to provide support in a vanguard assault."

Stellato exhaled a strained breath. _Assist SOLDIER in a vanguard assault?_ she thought _, more like use our MPs as a frontline diversion._

Zedrick continued. "You are to mobilize every asset of your respective companies in the subsequent operation, but you are to do so quietly. You are to coordinate your deployments while maintaining complete vox silence."

The three captains exchanged puzzled looks. Argyle looked completely perplexed, both eyebrows raised and wide-eyed. Despite herself, Stellato let out an incredulous gasp. Before speaking what was on everyone's mind, Vega made a rumbling noise that resonated bass through the conference room.

"Begging your pardon, General sir," Vega began, "we're going after one of our own, aren't we?"

Zedrick straightened and closed his eyes for a moment. When he opened his eyes again, there was not but forced resolve in them.

"The following individuals are to be brought in under the charge of treason: Evan Oris, Riwin Koucha, Shizune Mai, and Valerick Goodliffe. We are to apprehend them in a blitzkrieg operation in approximately 30 minutes in their office compound on the 66th floor of this very building. You each have some familiarity with the capabilities of some of these individuals. I have only just been granted access to their _actual_ files ten minutes ago, and I say to each of you in deadly earnest-however dangerous and capable you know these people to be-they are far more deadly than whatever you are imagining. That is why all of SOLDIER is being mobilized for this takedown."

After the shock of the moment washed over them, all three company captains began speaking at the same time.

"That's ridiculous!" spat Vega, "Shizune Mai is no traitor! Her crimson is the very blood of Shinra!"

"That doesn't make any sense," Argyle said, "Floors 61 through 70 are the hangar bays and storage. There are no offices there…"

"Is this a joke? Is that why Major Goodliffe isn't here at this meeting?" Stellato said with venom misdirected at Zedrick. "You're serious-we're going after _Major_ Goodliffe?"

" _HE IS NO MAJOR!_ " Zedrick shouted, slamming his fist into the conference room desk and silencing all of the captains assembled in the room. Flakes of plastic rattled to the floor from the fist-sized crater now in the conference desk.

"He is no Major," Zedrick repeated slowly, this time regaining his composure. "He is no longer worthy of his rank, appellations, or reputation." Zedrick closed his eyes again, as if wounded. "None of them are."

The captains sat in silence.

"We don't have time for your shock. I require your skills. Mobilize your forces within the barracks. Maintaining radio silence over the vox channels is key for this operation. We are to be the forefront assault force, while SOLDIER flanks in for the deathblow. I cannot stress enough how dangerous these people are. They are T…"

Zedrick stuttered for merely a split second, but all the captains noticed.

"They are to be treated with the highest threat level," Zedrick continued, "Capture if possible, shoot-to-kill is authorized. The longer we prolong this fight, the higher our casualty rate goes. I shit you not."

Zedrick gritted his teeth.

"Major Oris of Special Forces will be coordinating the strike once your companies have been deployed. Now get on with it."

Zedrick turned sharply on his heel towards the door and left swiftly. The three company captains immediately stood to attention and followed suit, Argyle and Stellato exchanging uneasy glances as they left the conference room and made a bee-line sprint straight for the barracks. Vega, last to leave the room, strode behind the other two captains down the hallway, but he did not maintain pace. There was something heavier in his steps than simply his physical bulk. His every step was laden with a maelstrom of loyalty and conflict within. The trek back to the barracks seemed to take him much longer than usual, and he could see that there was already a flurry of MP activity at the barracks just ahead. Stellato and Argyle had apparently already ordered the muster of their companies. Amidst the beehive of teal- and yellow-scarf MPs, a particularly quick and clumsy movement down the hall toward him made him halt inexplicably.

Charlie Company Lance Corporal Jika Thunderson was running at full sprint down the hallway, barking orders to himself as usual.

"Gotta get ready for the attack," he panted purposefully. "This is my chance to protect Midgar, the all and everyone!"

Before Vega could roll his eye in fruitless disgust as he usually did when witnessing most of what the other MPs in other companies did, an idea struck him with all the suddenness of a freight train. _Would it be a sufficient warning?/Why are you trying to warn her at all?_ Vega thought simultaneously. At this point in the hallway, the both of them were out of earshot, as far as Vega could tell. He reacted before his thoughts negated the opportunity.

Just as Jika was passing around him, Vega shot a murderously powerful arm out and picked Jika up off the floor by the carry handle of his combat harness. Jika let out a confused whimper as he hung suspended above the blue marbled floors, legs still dangling in a meaningless run. Vega brought him up to eye-level to address him.

"Lance Corporal Thunderson," Vega rumbled, "I have an important task that must be carried immediately. You will see to it."

"But Captain Vega, sir, I have been instructed by Captain Stellato to-"

"BELAY THAT ORDER AND OBEY _ME_."

"OK-OK-OK!" Jika fumbled in rapid succession.

Jika's slipshod response gave Vega the urge to put Jika through the wall, which would have resulted in him falling out of Shinra Tower, but Vega reminded himself that time was of the essence. He tightened his grip on Jika.

"Some of our combat elements are still out on patrol on the plate," Vega began. "You _WILL_ put out an APB over _ALL_ of the main MP vox channels for the mission targets. Make sure it goes out as a priority broadcast, so do it from coms central. You will do it immediately."

"But Captain Stellato said-"

" _NOW, THUNDERSON!_ "

Vega threw Jika overhand down the hall. Jika fumbled in midair like a haphazard cat and hit the ground running, rebounding off a wall before regaining his balance mid-stride. He threw out a terrified "yessir" before disappearing down the hallway on his way to coms central. Vega straightened to his full height once more, exhaling long and slow beneath his crimson face mask. _Is this the right thing to do?_ Vega thought to himself before blinking away the doubt with his remaining right eye. _It doesn't matter. She is no traitor._

Vega turned to resume his trek to the barracks, but the vision before him stopped him dead in his tracks. If there was ever such a thing as fear in Captain Chanceton Vega's world, it would have shown upon his soul at that very moment.

Standing ahead of him at the end of the hallway was Major Rhian Oris, commanding officer of the SSF-Shinra Special Forces-and former commanding officer of Alpha Company when he and Shizune had started as cadets years ago. Known informally as the _Shadow Maiden_ amongst the Paramilitary forces at large for her stealth and efficient lethality, Rhian was a battlefield goddess of death in her full battle gear, the pinnacle of which was the powered exoskeleton which scaffolded her combat webbing and body armor with hydraulic pistons of varying size and design, a piece of signature equipment unique to the SSF. Like Vega, Rhian's face was similarly hidden behind a military-grade aramid-weave facemask, though hers was the color of the SSF-the dark grey of tombstones in a winter that had only known moonlight. Her platinum blonde mane was tied up in the fearsome top-knot of a warrior queen, and although she was half the size of Vega, anyone watching the interaction now would have been able to tell immediately that it was Vega who was the lesser.

She stared Vega directly in the eye, arms folded pugnaciously in front of her chest.

Vega made a sound that was like an ogre coughing.

"Major," he began.

"Vega, did you just do what I think you just did?" Rhian said incredulously.

Vega meant to respond, but his body was now having a mutiny and refused to move or speak. He knew that to answer truthfully was to also be labelled traitor. He knew equally that to lie to Rhian would mean his immediate execution at her hands. Vega knew in that moment which of those two futures he preferred.

"Yes, ma'am," Vega confessed evenly, the undertones like the thunder of a storm in the distance.

Rhian scoffed abruptly and began walking toward Vega. As the distance between them closed, Vega stood up straighter, almost standing at attention. He clenched his fists, steeling himself for any number of outcomes, and mustered the reserves of his will for a final valediction.

"Major Mai," Vega began, "she is no traitor, and she would not willingly associate with traitors. I will not abide that falsehood. I would rather burn then let them make me be a liar."

Rhian's pace remained unwaveringly steady. Terminal.

"That makes two of us," she said, as she walked briskly past Vega and down the hall.

"Carry on, Captain."

As soon as Rhian disappeared around the corner at the far end of the hall, Vega closed his eye and drew in the deep breath that he was certain a moment ago didn't belong to him any longer. As he unclenched his fists and opened his eye again, a burst of static sounded over his com unit, followed by the voice of innocent confusion.

" _This is Jika Thunderson! I'm issuing an official arrest order for the following individuals…"_

* * *

 **NAGASE SHRINE, SOUTHERN WUTAI**

 **DISC 03 - JULY 2015**

The climb up the steps to Nagase Shrine had been more demanding than Shizune had initially thought. She had arrived at the mountain town of Aoyama at around noon that day, and the Wutaian summer heat and humidity seemed to especially revel in its work that day. The train ride from Banshu on the coast had been serene (and air conditioned), but much longer than Riwin had made it sound when he tipped Shizune off to this place during his unexpected visit two days prior.

" _She was from here, in Banshu you know? And she was married to a famous blacksmith, Junichiro Nagase, who if I'm not mistaken has a shrine named after him not too far from this shop._ " Riwin had said at the end of his surprise visit.

 _In Banshu?_ Shizune thought angrily, wiping sweat from her brow with an inadequately-sized hand towel with an embroidered cat on it.

 _Not too far from my shop, huh?_

The three hours on the train had translated to roughly 70km inland from the coastal proximity of Banshu.

 _Traitor._ Shizune thought as she saw Riwin's smiling jackal-face in her mind's eye.

She continued trekking up the stone stairway, each ascending step providing less and less evenness than the last.

She was here on a lead from Riwin, whose parting gift to Shizune before he left was an old photo of the poet Yae Nagase. This in and of itself would have been of mild curiosity to Shizune, who was already a fan of that poet, if not for the fact that Yae looked exactly like Shizune, the resemblance remarkably uncanny. Shizune, obviously Wutaian by birth, had been adopted by a couple from Midgar during her infancy. She never knew who her birth parents were, and that had always left an inexplicable hollowness within her that she could never truly ignore. The fact that Riwin had produced this strange photo, and that the shrine of Yae's husband, the renowned Wutaian blacksmith Junichiro Nagase, was within trekking distance was impetus enough for Shizune to investigate.

 _At worst,_ Shizune thought, _this is an empty lead that turns into a daytrip of historical lessons, the points of which I can utilize to bolster my cover here in Wutai. At best…_

Shizune paused in her thoughts, reluctant to even ponder what pandora's box of emotion might lie there.

 _There are no 'bests' anymore._ Shizune thought, ruefully, opting to default to her scientific analytical self. _It's nothing more than a coincidental, albeit uncanny, resemblance._

Shizune could finally see the top of the steps which culminated in a striking red _tori_ , or shrine gate. Reinvigorated by the prospect of an end to this infernal stairway, Shizune increased her pace, trotting to a stop just as she reached the top. She stood under the _tori_ gate and surveyed the shrine grounds.

As Shizune had expected, Nagase Shrine was laid out in a similar fashion as other Wutaian shrines. The entire shrine was arranged according to the cardinal directions of North, South, East and West, and Shizune stood directly beneath the entrance _tori_ gate on the South end of the shrine grounds. Before her was the perfectly-square expanse of the central courtyard. Arrayed in equally perfect symmetry around this courtyard were the various red-tile-roofed buildings which supported the shrine-a prayer house flanked the Eastern side, while the living quarters were situated on the opposite side to the Western flank. The Northern part of the Shrine was the primary ceremony area, which if Nagase Shrine was like other Wutaian shrines, likely also housed the reliquary, if there were any items of holy value to the people of this shrine.

In the exact center of the courtyard was the granite statue of a the namesake of this shrine, the blacksmith Junichiro Nagase. The figure knelt on one knee atop a tall, rough-hewn granite plinth. With both of its massively muscled arms, it gripped a giant serrated buster sword, planted point-down. Its head was angled downward, eyes closed, and Shizune couldn't tell if the overall composition was one of fatigue or deep thought. Perhaps both, who knew? The details of this statue were extremely well-crafted. As Shizune further admired the craftsmanship of the statue, she began to pick out the finely-wrought details-the contours of the skull, the brush-like fineness of the beard, she sharpness of the blade. It was a masterpiece, and truly deserved to be in the very center of this place. The midday summer sun beat down harshly everywhere, making all of the polished surfaces in the various buildings and statues shine sharply.

Like many of the other shrines that dotted the Wutaian island continent, Nagase Shrine in the mountain village of Aoyama was staffed by several shrine maidens, all of whom wore the standard two-tone hakama of pure white on the upper wear and striking bright red on the lower wear. Shizune could see about a dozen of them busying themselves with various chores and tasks. A few were using straw brooms to sweep the stone walkways, a few others seemed to be washing and wiping down other areas and parts of the structures. Still others were attending to duties that Shizune had no knowledge about, but that looked like some traditional prayer-related duties. It was then, when she was observing the shrine maidens at work that Shizune noticed that something was out of joint.

* * *

 **CHAT NOIR RESIDENTIAL COMPLEX, APT. 1701**

 **UPPER PLATE, SECTOR 4, MIDGAR**

 **DISC 01 - APRIL 2005**

"That ain't right," Valerick said.

In his gloved, thick-fingered hands he held a framed photo of a young Wutaian high school girl of about 15-16 years of age, in a white sailor-type uniform with the green trim. The girl had her black hair styled in a slightly bushy bob-cut, the ends of which fanged sharply downward in a kind of stylish trident-one prong of hair on either side of her face, and one knifing straight down in front of her forehead. From beneath those bangs peered the eyes of a predator, set appropriately above a mouth that seemed as though it had never known a smile. He had never seen such an impressive resting bitch face on someone so young before. Despite the absurdity of it, Valerick thought that the young girl in the photo seemed to be getting more and more angry the longer he looked at her. "Wasn't there ever a time when she was happy?" Valerick said aloud, mostly to himself.

Riwin popped his head around the right side of Valerick's bulky shoulder to look at the photo and began immediately bawling with laughter. "There's no way that's her!"

"Same eyes," Valerick said. "Daggers of blue defiance. Those are the same eyes she aimed at me when I ordered her company to fall back during the block war last year."

Riwin had meant to respond verbally but instead continued to stare at the photo, pointing and laughing.

"Enough," Evan scolded.

Riwin ended his outburst, capping off the laughter with a final inhale that inadvertently became a snort, which was enough to snap Valerick out of his odd perusal of the photo. He gently set the photo back down on the dresser, unconsciously replacing it to its original position and angle. Somehow, not even the dust around the photo had been disturbed.

The three Turks of R0-414 had easily let themselves into Shizune's modest apartment after both she and her informal sister of sorts, Ayumi Reina King, had left for their jobs for the day. To the average observer, they appeared to be casually going through the rooms at their leisure, each of them perusing and inspecting whatever seemed to pique their curiosity. In truth, they were each of them engaged in thoroughly scrutinizing the home environs of the potential candidate, as was R0-414's unofficial custom when assessing new blood. After about a solid hour of inspection, the three Turks now found themselves reconvening in Shizune's bedroom, with Valerick inspecting the various photos on her dresser and Riwin about to go through her closet.

Evan had her arms folded across her chest and was staring at the bookshelf in Shizune's room, her eyes scanning the titles of the books.

"Report," she said.

"Well," Valerick began, stepping away from the dresser and photos and turning to address Evan, "she appears to meet the prima facie loyalty qualifications. Nothing here disqualifies her for the position, anyhow. If she were working for the Nation of Wutai or AVALANCHE, I would have found something by now. She's clean."

"There is one thing," Riwin countered, as he was sifting through the dresser drawer, "her room is pretty messy and has lots of human-like things in it-like undergarments, bras, panties…"

Valerick made a groaning, exasperated noise as he closed his eyes and shook his head in embarrassment. When he opened his eyes again Riwin was wearing Shizune's bra and panties over his Turk suit and swaying with drunken, misplaced sexiness, admiring his own handiwork in the tall mirror in the corner of the bedroom. In the moment Valerick had broken visual contact with Riwin, he had somehow managed to don the underwear. It would have been impressive if it wasn't so disturbing.

"Anyone want sum fun?," Riwin said in an opiated slur they had all heard before. "Let little ol' Fat Sally cheer ya up and take ya away from youse troubles!"

Valerick shot out his right hand in a brutal ridgehand strike aimed at the back of Riwin's head, which Riwin immediately ducked under.

"The hell was that for!?" Riwin shouted, re-adjusting the bra.

"Get serious," Valerick said flatly.

"What? I am serious. I thought ' _The Crimson Lady'_ was some kind of monster. Monsters don't need underwear!"

"Both of you, shut up," Evan said, still staring at the bookshelf. "Neither of you noticed _anything_ out of the ordinary?"

Valerick and Riwin knew that Evan wasn't simply asking, but trying to test them both. They immediately started scanning the room with their eyes for what she might be talking about.

"ABOUT THIS BOOKSHELF," Evan said.

The three Turks walked closer to the bookshelf, Riwin and Valerick now flanking their commander as usual, with Evan leaning in much closer now to the books themselves. Her eyes narrowed briefly before she stood up straight again.

"As Valerick said," Evan began evenly, "she's clean-free of the typical 'dirt', as it were..."

Evan ran a slender finger across the surface of the shelf and raised it so that her two subordinates could see the wad of dust on it.

"However," she continued as she dusted her finger off, "she's not a cleanly person."

Evan reached for the book on the shelf with the least amount of dust. As soon as she removed the book, an out-of-print edition of _Hierarchical Power Structures in Materia-gathering Societies_ , the entire shelf slid neatly to the side, revealing a darkened room beyond. A halogen light flickered to life in the hidden room, casting sharp illumination on a small chamber with unpainted steel-reinforced concrete walls. Lining both the Eastern and Western walls were gun racks, each spot of which was occupied by what appeared to be highly-modified versions of standard-issue firearms. Entering the room from the newly-revealed entrance to the South, the three Turks saw that the Northern end of this chamber ended in an obsidian workstation, upon which sat a square cluster of 9 high-definition monitors.

Riwin whistled his surprise, while Valerick frowned further.

Evan simply grinned.

"Alright, Koucha," Evan said, "you're on to something with this one."

"So..." Riwin said expectantly, "...she can join?"

Valerick rubbed the back of his head, eyes closed in thought. "I don't know about this one, Boss. She's already got a reputation in both the Paramilitary _and_ on both sides of the plate. Too much recognition. Plus, I think Major Oris pegged her for SSF. The internal review paperwork passed through my office last month. She's a line officer. All punch, no subtlety-perfect for the SSF, in my opinion. Too loud and proud for us."

Though Evan was still listening intently to her subordinates, her eyes were locked onto the workstation humming and clicking discretely in the background. She remained silent for few moments longer before turning on her heel to leave.

"Koucha," she said, "where is she currently?"

"Today's Alpha's turn in VR on the 60th floor. Shall I call a meeting, ma'am?" Riwin said, barely able to contain his excitement.

"Please do," Evan said, "and take off that underwear."

Just before she left the hidden chamber, she turned to Valerick.

"Line officers don't hack hardened networks or invent new weapons. If she is what I think she is, then I won't let Rhian have her. Our organization lacks a certain kind of innovation. Our agents are all beyond creative in their plannings and operations, but we lack the technical expertise as a whole to pull off everything we plan. Technical innovation and mechanical inventiveness," she said, gesturing to the workstation and the gun racks, each in turn.

Evan turned to regard the other Turks.

"And this one might actually be useful…" Evan said, her brow furrowed in thought. "Nay, _unique_ in that regard."

* * *

 **NAGASE SHRINE, SOUTHERN WUTAI**

 **DISC 03 - JULY 2015**

Shizune froze for several moments as she noticed that all of the shrine maidens at Nagase Shrine sported bob-cuts and square-framed glasses. The fact that all of them were dressed and styled nearly identically was bizarre in and of itself, but the fact that all of them looked eerily similar to the way that Shizune had looked when she was still a Turk in Midgar was unnervingly surreal. Granted, Shizune Mai, now five years exiled from Midgar and in hiding as the long-haired, non-glasses-wearing cafe owner Rei Kashiwabara, did not presently resemble any of the shrine maidens. Still, the overall effect was that Shizune continued to stare at them in disbelief for several long seconds. And now, all of the shrine maidens began to stop their various chores to look back at the woman directly beneath _tori_ gate with the long, raven-black hair.

There was a palpable silence interrupted only by the sound of a crow echoing off the distant mountains as the former Turk and her shrine maiden doppelgangers regarded each other.

"Good afternoon," a refined female voice said from behind Shizune. "Welcome to Nagase Shrine."

Despite herself, Shizune let out a gasp and spun around, admittedly surprised that she had been snuck up on from behind, though she attributed that to her years out of practice and the scene she was just caught up in.

A tall, young Wutaian woman was standing before Shizune. Although this woman was a few steps behind and below Shizune on the stairway, the fact that she was at eye level with Shizune meant that she was taller than Shizune by several inches. The woman was dressed in a similar fashion to the other shrine maidens, and despite the punishing heat of the summertime, wore an elaborately embroidered red robe over her garments. Even though the outfit made the her look wide with angular bulk, Shizune could tell that she was a very slender woman. Her long, sun-lightened hair was center-parted, tightly braided, and trailed down just beyond her waist, and her hands were folded neatly in front of her. She had a face that was the hint of softly smiling sadness, and despite her youthful appearance, she spoke with the grace and maturity of veteran royalty.

"Forgive me for startling you," she began in overly-formal Wutaian, "my name is Kiyoku Adachi, and I am the head priestess of Nagase Shrine."

Kiyoku gave a low and proper 90-degree Wutaian bow, which Shizune returned out of reaction.

"Is this your first time to our shrine?" Kiyoku asked.

"Yes, I'm afraid it is," Shizune said with the awkward and embarrassed laugh-smile that was Rei Kashiwabara's trademark.

Kiyoku gestured gently with her hand towards the statue in the center of the courtyard. "I would be most pleased to show you around, miss...?"

"Rei Kashiwabara," Shizune said, beaming a smile. "Pleased to meet you, Ms. Adachi."

"By all means, please call me Kiyoku," she said, now ascending the rest of the steps to lead Shizune into the shrine. "Please follow me, and feel free to interrupt me at any time if you have any questions at all."

"Actually, yes," Shizune said, "I was wondering why all of the shrine maidens here look like….well, the same as each other."

Kiyoku's smile widened, and she raised a hand to cover her mouth.

"That all of the shrine maidens here adopt the same look-it is perhaps one of the more stranger customs of the maidens of this shrine, but one that we all take quite seriously. It is considered the highest honor to adopt the look of Yae Nagase, the late wife of the Son of Iron."

"The Son of Iron?" Shizune asked.

"Junichiro Nagase, the last blacksmith of the Daimyo of Banshu, is known throughout these provinces by his title, 'The Son of Iron'," Kiyoku explained, raising an upturned open palm toward the statue in the courtyard and beckoning Shizune to follow.

Kiyoku lead Shizune through the courtyard towards the statue, taking small steps as she went. The confines of her clothing apparently limited a normal gait. As the two women approached the statue, Shizune noticed that all of the shrine maidens had resumed their duties, but her senses told her that all eyes were now on her. The clopping sound of Kiyoku's wooden geta sandals echoed in the courtyard as they came to the foot of the statue.

"This is the late Junichiro Nagase," Kiyoku said with utter reverence. "The Son of Iron."

"You mentioned a moment ago that he was the last blacksmith of Banshu," Shizune said, "but I thought that Banshu was on the Eastern coast. Isn't this Aoyama?"

Kiyoku nodded softly. "It is as you say-this is indeed presently Aoyama. But before the wars with Shinra, in the time when the Shogunate were still in power, when Wutai was still an unbroken blade, this entire region was known as Banshu, the home of the Son of Iron, and now, his final resting place."

Kiyoku inclined her head as the finished the phrase, apparently out of respect to the dead blacksmith.

"I'm impressed with the detail on this statue," Shizune said. "The Son if Iron must have been a very important person to demand such a tribute."

"He was indeed a very important person," Kiyoku began, "but in truth, this is no statue."

Shizune blinked once, perplexed. "Pardon?"

"In order to craft the finest weapons for the Shogunate," Kiyoku explained, "a blacksmith must acquire and appraise his own materials. Unfortunately, the best materials for weapons and armor are in the same places as some of Banshu's most dangerous fauna. While out gathering supplies, the Son of Iron was attacked by a particularly powerful beast which afflicted him with a strong petrify poison. While the blacksmith was able to escape back to his home, he finally succumbed to the effects of the spell and what you see before you is in fact the noble remains of the Son of Iron, himself."

Shizune was looking at the "statue" throughout the entirety of Kiyoku's explanation. She felt an unsettling wave goosebumps ripple over the skin of her arms and neck upon hearing this that this was indeed a petrified person. In the distance by the reliquary to the north, Shizune noticed that several shrine maidens had gathered and, despite their efforts to look unassuming, were obviously gossipping about her.

Kiyoku seemed to notice where Shizune's gaze was drawn and slowly turned to face the northern reliquary. As soon as Kiyoku turned her attention to the reliquary, the shrine maidens gathered there dispersed like frightened squirrels. Kiyoku once again put a hand to her mouth to hide her laughing-smile. The gesture reminded Shizune of the benignly mischievous fox goddess of Wutaian myth, raising a paw to scratch at its nose.

"You are of course welcome to enter the reliquary as an observer," Kiyoku said, "if you wish."

Kiyoku led Shizune to the entrance of the reliquary, but before ascending the few steps to the reliquary entrance, Kiyoku removed her wooden geta slippers. She stopped before the sliding double doors and inclined her head forward for a moment, eyes closed, and seeming to utter a prayer under her breath, before sliding each of the doors open and entering. Shizune followed behind and entered.

There were no windows in the reliquary, and the interior was considerably darker than the outside. The warm smell of ancient, fragrant woods and incense was pervasive here. It took Shizune a few moments for her eyes to adjust to the darkened interior. Eventually, Shizune began to make out more and more of her surroundings. Bladed weapons of various classification, size, and design were arrayed on display stands, their visage coming into focus like slivers of vengeful silver lightning. The maidens of this shrine had apparently tended to their duties to the utmost-none of the weapons in this reliquary were a shred below perfect quality and condition. In the very center of the room was a roughly 1.5 meter tall weathered mithril statue of a Wutaian long-whiskered dragon, coiled in an elongated S-pattern and standing upon a large black lava rock. It's relatively small arms and legs were all sinewy muscle culminating in taloned claws. The eyes of the dragon were angry red rubies, and the dragon appeared to be biting down upon a large, polished purple-black spherical jewelstone that was about the size of a grapefruit. The jewel had an ugly hairline fracture running roughly down the center of it. As Shizune approached the dragon statue, eyes still locked on the sphere, she realized that it wasn't a jewelstone at all.

The dragon's treasure was a cracked gravity materia.

This gravity materia appeared to be somewhat larger and more imperfectly-shaped than common materia. Upon closer inspection, this materia appeared to have some kind of strange crystalline marbling visible in its inner translucent structure. Shizune's eyes widened upon realizing what she was looking at.

 _Natural Materia_.

Regular materia, the kind that was sold in stores throughout Gaia, was synthetically manufactured, and this was typically evident in the perfect spherical shape and in their general range of effectiveness, even at the more evolved levels. Natural materia, on the other hand, was exceedingly rare, only coming into being at naturally-occurring mako springs, and crystalizing only after several hundreds of years. Natural materia was also vastly more powerful than any normal synthetic materia. Shizune surmised that this particular natural gravity materia must be a very highly-evolved form of the gravity crystallization, likely on par with the 3rd tier gravity spell of the synthetically-manufactured, "normal" materia even at its base output.

Shizune had never seen natural materia before, although the topic had come up fairly often enough when she was still the head of the Research and Logistics Division of the Turks. Turk mission parameters typically demanded the extreme, the unorthodox, or some combination thereof, so there were always requests from agents to increase materia slotting, amplify magic output, or to simply find ways to slot materia into items that typically had no such function, such as cigarette lighters or paper weights. Since materia always seemed to be a priority for agents, Shizune had done independent research into the topic, and natural materia seemed an easy solution to many of these scalability problems, but the acquisition of such rare materia was always a problem in and of itself.

And now, here she was, staring an inert dragon statue in the face while it held a mythical bauble in its jaws.

It took Shizune a force of effort to continue feigning ignorance.

"Is that a…" Shizune began, pointing at the materia. "A…. What is that?"

"This is known as the ' _Eye of Oblivion'_ ," Kiyoku responded. "It is the oldest and most treasured relic of the this shrine, passed down through the generations from the progenitor of the Nagase clan, Mugen Nagase. It is said that Mugen's wife, the shogun Naotora Nagase, carried this unusual jewelstone into battle as a totem of favor and luck from the gods."

 _Jewelstone?_ Shizune thought, the misnomer sounding alerts in her mind.

"It kinda looks like a big materia," Shizune said to probe the point.

Kiyoku donned her sad smile once again, regarding the Eye for a moment before answering.

"That it does," she said softly, "and many visitors have have seen the Eye have commented similarly. We do believe that this jewelstone has much spiritual power, but in terms of granting magic in the same way that materia does, it simply is not so."

 _She either doesn't know what it truly is..._ Shizune thought, continuing to nod intently and still wearing the curious, wide-eyed expression of Rei.

 _...or she is lying._

* * *

 **SHINRA TOWER, 66TH FLOOR**

 **MIDGAR**

 **DISC 02 - NOVEMBER 2005**

The four members of R0-414 were seated at the darkly lacquered conference table for their regularly-scheduled meeting. Evan, Valerick, Riwin, and Shizune were all dressed in fully besuited Turk attire, but unlike the rest of them, Valerick Goodliffe was also noticeably beaten and battered-the entire right side of his face was fully bandaged in gauze, which wound down around his neck to disappear abruptly where his collared shirt and necktie began. More injury evidenced itself in both the medical sling which now cradled his left arm, as well as the various cuts and bruises which could be seen on whatever skin was actually visible while he was wearing his Turk suit. However, despite his numerous injuries, Valerick's posture and his way of speaking made it seem as though he were simply wearing extra clothing, nothing more. He stood at his place at the table, concluding his official report.

"In summary," Valerick said, "Nicodemus' efforts to establish a foothold in Fort Condor are ongoing, but appear promising. My official recommendation is that we continue pursuing these actions. High Marshall Griggs is not averse to further communication."

The silence that followed lasted for a beat before Evan nodded and Valerick sat down.

"This 'High Marshall Griggs' is _not averse to communicating?_ " Evan said dubiously. "That was a cautiously ambiguous way to put that. Care to elaborate?"

Valerick's face, or what was visible of it, was an unreadable granite facade for the moment before he answered Evan.

"I was able to move the slider from 'Pure Hatred' to something like, 'OK, I'll hear what you have to say, then get out.' Basically."

Evan leaned back in her chair and slid her hands into her pockets, eyes searching the ceiling for nothing in particular.

"Fine," she said, still staring at the ceiling. "Nicodemus can go back to Fort Condor to continue that operation, but only after _you_ have healed up."

"Understood," Valerick said with a slight bow of the head. "My next report will be more positively forthcoming."

"I know," Evan said, cooly. "That's why you're going back. Now, let's hear from R&D. Shizune, what's new on the menu?"

Shizune shot up out of her seat sharply, making the chair she was sitting in slide half a meter behind her, and in turn making everyone roll their eyes. She was still fairly new to R0-414 and it would take longer than she had anticipated to phase out her years of conditioning with the Military Police. She dove right into her report in order to move past this embarrassing slip up.

"As of the last meeting, progress continues on schedule for all the currently submitted custom equipment requests from field agents. Presently, the average turnaround rate for submitted personal requests resides in the upper bound of approximately 2.0~2.5 weeks, with a variance of +/- 0.55."

"In plainer words, my dear," Riwin said. "We don't need the math, just the meat."

Shizune flared her nostrils in frustration at her Turk handler, but complied immediately. Albeit through gritted teeth.

"I can complete most of the department requests for special equipment in just over a couple of weeks. May I continue?"

Riwin wore the smile of a man ready to receive a prestigious award, and nodded to Shizune.

"I've prepared a slide presentation with videos where necessary which details all of the projects which have been successfully completed since the last meeting. Firstly, there are several new ammunition types for the Turk Multi-purpose Pistol-or TMP-the first of which is the tracker dart rounds designated 'Omicron.'"

Behind Shizune a holo-projection showed a plain text slide which had all of the tracker dart round's technical specifications laid out in default bullet-point format.

"Obviously," Shizune continued, "these rounds transmit GPS data accurate to within a couple of meters, and the data is fed directly to the appropriately paired coms device. The current iteration of this round is unfortunately overwhelmed by mako interference, so be advised that should your intended target stray closer to the reactors, you may lose them."

Shizune tapped the screen of her tablet device to advance the slide.

"Next, we have two rounds which are similar in that they fulfill a tactical support function. The _Goop Round_ spreads a sticky adhesive substance on any targeted contact surface. You can use these to arrest the movement of anyone you are pursuing. The next type are the _Hyper-Foam Rounds_. Upon contact with a targeted surface, these create an instantly erectable barrier made from quick-expanding, hardening foam. The barrier will chemically last for approximately 5 minutes. During that time, the lipid molecule structure will expand exponentially into a kind of spongiform configuration which exhibits the ability to absorb the kinetic energy of conventional small arms fire at up to point-blank range."

As Shizune explained, the slide behind her played a video in which Riwin was sprinting away from Shizune, with Shizune firing goop rounds from her TMP at the area just ahead of him. Riwin was summarily stuck in place by the dark green puddle that formed, and Shizune began trying to knock him out with a collapsible night stick she produced from somewhere in her suit. Riwin continued to expertly avoid each of those genuine swings.

In the next clip, Shizune and Valerick were standing opposite each other, about 10 meters apart. They fired their TMP hyper-foamer rounds at the ground space between them, and what looked like a giant, 2-meter-tall pillow of laundry soap bubbles grew rapidly into existence where they had shot. In the next moment, both Turks had drawn lethal weapons-Shizune producing her custom high-caliber revolver, and Valerick opting this time for his .45 Kriss Vector-and began firing at each other through the foam wall, but none of the rounds were getting through the foam barrier. The video switched to time-lapse fast forward, and the foam barrier slowly dissolved, leaving only the spent rounds behind. Valerick and Shizune high-fived before he video clip ended.

"Hey!" Riwin shouted, "the fuck was that?"

Valerick chuckled. "What?"

Shizune coughed conspicuously and continued her report. "I can demonstrate the next of these new rounds."

With lightning reflexes, Shizune drew her TMP and fired on both Riwin and Valerick. Despite their own preternatural speed and skills, both Valerick and Riwin managed to get hit squarely in the chest. Though neither of the Ace Turks wanted to openly admit it, Shizune's rabid approach to firing drills had apparently made her the quickest draw in R0-414.

And despite the body armor they wore underneath their suits, they were both now profusely bleeding.

Before either of them could react to the wounds, Shizune fired another round, this time at the conference table. The place where she fired was now also bleeding just as freely as where Shizune had shot Riwin and Valerick.

"I proudly present the Type-73 False Execution Rounds, codenamed ' _Dasvidaniya'_. I think you get the point, right?" Shizune said while spinning the TMP on her finger like the Corellian gunfighters of old. She re-safetied and re-holstered her sidearm in the next fraction of a second.

Riwin and Valerick both looked at Evan, their hands covered in copious amounts of fake blood, and Evan laughed.

"Keep going," Evan said, "I know you've been making more than just bullets."

Shizune nodded proudly. "Yes ma'am, that is correct. Earlier this month, Riwin put in an official request for 'range-finding shades'."

The slide advanced again, just time showing several photographs of a pair of sunglasses alongside a small text box with specifications.

"Designated ' _Cassandra'_ , these sunglasses currently contain Heads Up Display functionality for both laser-range finding, measured in meters, and a cardinal direction compass. Riwin claims that he can punch and cast better if he knows how many numerical meters away his intended target happens to be, so he wanted these things," Shizune said dismissively.

"Why do you need to know how far away something is to punch it?" Valerick asked.

Riwin threw his hands up in exasperation. "It's not so much the punching as much as it is for me to, you know, cast Earth spikes ahead of someone so they run into them. Asshole."

Valerick shrugged. "Hmph. Fair enough."

"Regardless," Shizune continued, "I do believe that _Cassandra_ has room to grow. With a bit more work, these could be made to have a target-marking functionality. I surmise that these could also be a rudimentary form of a real-time combat analysis device, so I'll continue tinkering to see if I can route it to the Shinra Cloud Computers. If I can do that, the device can utilize the computational power of the motherbase in its analysis of the multivariate aspects of dynamic battle."

Riwin raised an eyebrow. "You mean, it could scout power levels?"

"Not quite," Shizune said, "but it may help in certain tactical assessments. Moving on, I would like to report that _Operation: Witching Hour_ was a considerable success. As some of you may recall, we rigged all of the festival games present at last month's city-wide Halloween Celebration with various kinds of sensors and biometric scanners. Data collation has finally been completed and I can now proudly say that the Shinra InfoNet has enough biometric info to positively identify anyone who played with any of those festival prize games based on any two combinatorial vectors of surveillance data."

At this, all the Turks in the room exchanged impressed nods.

"Seriously?" Riwin said in disbelief, still wiping the fake blood off his shirt and suit. "We got the identification data of everyone in the city?"

"Not everyone," Valerick countered, apparently content to have leave the blood as it was. "But I would say that the majority of the upper plate and even some of the slummies attended the Halloween Festival. Not bad, Shizune."

"Indeed," Evan said, "in fact, _Op: Witching Hour_ was so successful that we are already planning a Christmas version of this Op."

"There is actually only one bit of bad news about _Op: Witching Hour_ ," Shizune said. "The puzzle box I designed and deployed in order to test citizen I.Q. for potential Turk recruits or threats-apparently it's still sitting in the fountain square. No one has yet solved it."

"Leave it as it is for now," Evan said. "Individuals who are good enough to warrant our positive or negative attention are currently few and far between, so statistically speaking, this may end up being a long game."

Shizune nodded her assent and went to advance the slide, but Riwin shot his hand up like a schoolboy needing permission to go the restroom.

"What if Thunderson or Lycanthyr open it?" Riwin said in mock speculation. "Does that mean we have to start vetting them for the Turks?"

"If you must know," Shizune said as-a-matter-of-factly, "the puzzle box-designated _Pandora_ \- was designed specifically so that Jika Thunderson would be the very _last_ person who could crack it."

"Aw, but he loves you so much…" Riwin said.

Shizune ignored the comment and advanced the presentation to a title slide that simply read "WEAPON PROJECTS" in bold.

"I'll shut up now," Riwin said, eyes alight with anticipation.

"Moving on," Shizune began, "I think this is the part that everyone has been waiting for, and quite frankly, this is the part of R&D that I enjoy the most. I've been working on several new weapons, each tailored to each of your specific combat preferences, and according to each of your official and particular requests. I'll introduce each of them in detail in the subsequent slides."

* * *

 **NAGASE SHRINE, SOUTHERN WUTAI**

 **DISC 03 - JULY 2015**

As Shizune continued to listen to Kiyoku drone on serenely about the history of the Nagase clan, the shrine, and how the Nagase blacksmiths had always served the Shogunate, she continued to stare at the Eye of Oblivion "jewelstone" held between the jaws of the mithril dragon statue. Through her former Turk training in espionage and infiltration, Shizune had refined and perfected her already-formidable skills in the arts of disguise and covert surveillance, but despite that, she found that she could not stop blatantly staring at this heirloom, which was-as far as her scientific expertise was telling her-an extremely rare naturally-occurring materia. Perhaps it was because of her training that she was acutely aware that she was staring at it in a way that threatened to break her cover as Rei Kashiwabara.

Shizune blinked hard in an effort to break gaze with the Eye of Oblivion, now cursing the materia for whatever it was about it that made it so infuriatingly curious to her. As a means of explaining her unsually long eye-blink, Shizune feigned a pained expression and brought a hand up to her eye, rubbing it as though it were irritated by dust.

When she opened her eyes again, the entire reliquary interior was awash in a bruise-purple glow.

Kiyoku, now flanked by several of the doppelganger shrine maidens, were all staring in awe at the Eye of Oblivion as it glowed luminously in the jaws of the dragon. Many of them were staring at what was happening with mouths ajar, and some had both hands cupped over their mouths. Kiyoku herself wore a look of genuine shock, eyes bewilderingly wide, though her thin lips were tightly pursed closed as if she were bracing herself for something.

As the light grew more intense, several small bolts of purple lightning shot out from the crack in the materia and snaked over the mithril dragon statue. The corposant then seemed to suddenly take on a very peculiar shape. Where typical lightning snakes out in acutely angled branches, this lightning was now branching out at perpendicular, 90-degree angles to the the main branches which wrapped tightly around the dragon statue with a scorching hiss and the severe smell of ozone. The strange, almost synthetically-shaped lightning pattern grew in light intensity for half a second before seeming to explode away into a momentary cloud of glowing purple sparks. A sharp firecracker pop deafened everyone in the room and the shockwave of the explosive dissipation staggered everyone.

A narrow pillar of smoke was rising off of the dragon statue now. The smoke was a sickly opaque ochre and the acrid odor reminded Shizune of burnt solder. In the places that the lightning had wrapped the statue, silvery liquid metal was flowing off in runnels, making pools of quicksilver that snaked down the lava rock base and crept onto the tatami floor in all directions. A shimmering haze of heat cloaked the statue for a few moments, helping to clear the smoke straight up to the ceiling. The effect was like seeing smoky liquid sludge falling straight upwards. In the next moment, the smoke and liquid metal had cleared, and all could see a strange brickwork pattern in the places on the statue where metal was no longer present. With a clockwork mechanical springing noise, the body of the dragon split open at the new seems to reveal a curved, lacquered wooden box inside, the family crest of the Nagase clan-長瀬-emblazoned in red-gold leaf on the front of the box. The box was roughly a little over a meter in length and was shaped so that it would fit neatly in the center of the body of the curving dragon.

Shizune, still perplexed in the minute or so in which this had all occurred, now noticed that Kiyoku and all of the shrine maidens were completely face down and flat against the floor in the traditional Wutaian _seiza_ bow of respect-all of them bowed as low and flat as they could, legs tucked neatly beneath them, foreheads resting on overlapping hands set palm-down upon the floor, and all heads aimed unmistakably at Shizune, who was still standing.

Unsure of how to react as either Rei or herself, Shizune stood there in silence for several long moments. It was finally Kiyoku who spoke.

"Only those of the true, central bloodline of the Nagase clan can awaken the Eye of Oblivion," Kiyoku said, words trembling, her face still aimed squarely at the floor. Shizune could now hear the sounds of some of the shrine maidens sniffling back tears.

"And now," Kiyoku said, "after all this time, the lost Daughter of Iron has returned to claim the _Akatsuki_."


	5. File 04 - Naming of the Parts

**TOWN OF BANSHU, SOUTHERN WUTAI**

 **WAKEISEIJAKU TEA HOUSE & CAFE**

 **DISC 03 - AUGUST 2015**

Riwin fidgeted with his work cap as he neared the entrance of Wakeiseijaku. The afternoon was overcast and humid, the shadows of rain clouds in the coastal distance. He paused for a moment to regard the quaint cafe with the rounded roof and well-tended garden yard. _If it weren't for the sign,_ Riwin thought, _this place might just be some old lady's house._

He approached the door and reached out to open it, but a couple of tentative door pulls and pushes told him that it was locked. He raised a hand to knock, but just before he did, the door opened.

Shizune stepped out and locked the door behind her. Riwin cracked a knowing smile as he saw Shizune raising two fingers to her face in order adjust her old square-framed glasses-glasses that Rei Kashiwabara never wore. She had a large brown duffel bag slung across her shoulder. She spun on her heel and walked past Riwin.

"We have work to do," she said firmly as she continued walking down to the road, the sound of the impending storm echoing in the valley on the horizon.

"Well, it's nice to see you, too, Shizune…" Riwin said with no uncertain sarcasm. "And where is it that we are headed?"

Shizune continued her brisk pace down the dirt path that connected Wakeiseijaku with the greater town of Banshu and the port. "To borrow your terminology," she said evenly, "you're serious about 'getting the band back together'?"

"Come on, Shiz, when am I ever _not_ serious?"

Shizune stopped in her tracks.

"Erm, don't answer that," Riwin said preemptively. Shizune resumed her march away from the cafe.

"In order to reconvene," Shizune began, "we'll need to find the others. I don't know how you found _me_ , but I doubt you'd tell me any time soon. In any event, I'll need access to the InfoNet."

"I had a feeling you were gonna say that," Riwin said, beaming a magnanimous, million-gil smile. "So, my dear Shizune, I have already prepared a hardened access node a couple of ports up in Minami-kata. Aaa~aand, guess where the _Anko Dancer_ 's next port of call is?"

"We are not going to Minami-kata." Shizune said, flatly.

"You're welcome!" Riwin spat.

"What? I'm not going anywhere in that reeking fishing trawler."

"Come on-Shinra presence in Minami-kata is essentially nil."

"I'll need something that can access the old Turk backdoors-backdoors which _I_ wrote personally. And that's going to have to be a place with Vermillion-level security clearance. Minami-kata doesn't have that. Plus," Shizune said, giving a few solid tugs to the duffel bag she had slung over her shoulder, "I need a materials lab-preferably metallurgy-to find out more about this. I happen to know a place that has a metallurgy lab with an InfoNet node with classified clearance in the very same room."

"Ah, gotcha," Riwin said as if he knew where Shizune was talking about. Riwin was always the best con-artist in R0-414. Verbally, his ruse was flawless. Save for the several second silence which followed.

"You don't know do you?" Shizune said.

"I was about to ask y-"

"Rocket Town," Shizune said.

"Rocket Town…" Riwin tried to say quickly in unison with Shizune, half-heartedly feigning that he had figured it out.

A few more seconds passed in silence as the two former Turks navigated a small hillside path down to the the main road to the harbor.

"And, how do you propose we find our beloved party members?" Riwin asked.

"Like we used to in the old days."

"Biometric data?" Riwin said, perplexed. "Um, I thought you said that the _Zero Protocol_ digitally fried all our personal biometric data."

"Totally. Completely. In every sense of the word," Shizune said with finiteness. "The biometric data associated with our DNA no longer exists within the Shinra database or the InfoNet in any way."

"What are you not letting me in on?"

Shizune remained quiet for a beat, walking in casual silence.

The corners of Riwin's mouth curled up in a wry grin.

" _You still have our data,_ " Riwin said under his breath.

"That is highly likely," Shizune said.

"You could search for hits matching our biometric data with the templates you saved and not alert the system, _since we're not in there to begin with_ ," Riwin said as a half-indictment.

"With such tasty intel, that is also theoretically possible," Shizune confirmed nonchalantly.

Riwin scoffed in good humor.

"But, where have you been keeping it all this time?"

Shizune raised two fingers up to her face and propped up her signature square-framed eyeglasses.

"Somewhere close, where I could always keep an eye on it."

* * *

 **SHINRA TOWER, 66TH FLOOR**

 **MIDGAR**

 **DISC 02 - MAY 2005**

"This is where we congregate, so that I can keep an eye on all of you. Well, more than that, you should all be keeping an eye on each other."

Evan and Shizune entered a spacious, two-tiered office with staircases flanking both the eastern and western walls. There were plush black leather couches and sturdy, yet comfortable-looking wooden chairs positioned around small coffee tables. On the upper tier of this pseudo-office were more of these kinds of work-relaxation spaces along with fully-laden bookcases. The entire room was lined with authentic dark wood paneling. Shizune could even smell some of the semi-sweet, earthy tones from the repurposed wood, and wondered how new this office space was.

Evan noticed Shizune silently scanning the room with her eyes.

"You think this is too ostentatious, don't you?" Evan asked.

"It looks like a downtown Chubby Chocobo," Shizune said flatly.

Evan gave a singular emphatic laugh, genuinely amused.

"Yes, it kind of does, doesn't it?" Evan conceded. "Well, that being the case, you had better get used to living and working in a Chubby Chocobo."

"I miss the barracks."

"I forgot to mention," Evan started, as she gestured to the walls around them, "all the wood paneling you see here sits atop Mako-tempered blast-proof walls."

"Touché," Shizune said, impressed.

Evan stopped and folded her arms across her chest. She was in the center of the office space atrium which was flanked on all sides by office doors at regular intervals on the second floor. Shizune came to a halt in front of the Turk unit commander, and Evan regarded her with a neutral expression.

This woman, Evan Oris, as Shizune had come to know her, shared a functional kinship with the nature of this office-resting just behind her pleasant facade was the steel soul of something invincible; something not quite warrior, not quite devil, but something that embodied both of those qualities but was somehow neither. Shizune could tell that the other suits could sense that as well. Whoever Evan Oris was, she apparently commanded the loyalty of every person Shizune had seen her speak with since entering this place.

"I'll ask you again," Evan said evenly, "and this time, try not to set off your bitch bomb."

Shizune winced as she recalled their first meeting. Her lower jaw throbbed with the memory of that pain. She nodded once.

"What do you know about the Turks?" Evan asked.

"Informally," Shizune began, "the Turks is the name of a secret organization in Shinra dedicated to carrying out special operations of questionable natures, ranging from corporate espionage to kidnapping and assassinations. They are rumored to have unlimited access to resources and information. Some say they hunt rogue SOLDIERs, as if there could ever be such a thing."

"And formally?"

"Shinra categorically denies the existence of such an organization."

"I wasn't asking 'Shinra.' I was asking _you._ "

"I believe that it benefits the company to have just such a clandestine unit. The Military Police are bound by the public eye. The Special Forces can only legally be deployed during emergencies and wartime. SOLDIER is a force comprised of the heroes of justice."

"That was a very political way of dodging the question."

"As company comma-," Shizune caught herself, "As _former_ company commander of Shinra MP's most decorated and despised unit, I am required to temper my answers with a concern for public perception and legal neutrality."

"According to your file," Evan began, "which I have both memorized and found extremely amusing, it says that in your sophomore year at Midgar University, you once tailed a man in a suit all over the upper plate because you thought he was a Turk, only to find out that he was a Chocobo feed salesman."

Shizune's eyes widened in shock.

"How did you-"

"'Unlimited access to information,' as it were."

"How is that even recorded anywhere?" Shizune asked.

"Firstly," Evan began, "it's Midgar-you are _always_ being watched. Secondly, young Shizune was about half-right..."

Shizune's expression was that of a human bluescreen.

"Maybe I'll tell you about it someday. In any event, I know it sounds somewhat surreal to a boots-on-the-ground type like yourself, but for once, the rumors are actually true. We handle all of that soul-scuffing stuff on behalf of the company, so that they don't have to. Suffice it to say, I am not going to go down the list, demonstrating or citing past kidnappings, assassinations, and rogue SOLDIER takedowns to you, but I think you get my point. Besides, given the current state of affairs, you'll be seeing all of that soon enough."

Shizune nodded slowly.

"Speak," Evan said. "There is something on your mind."

"Why me?" Shizune asked.

"There is an opening in my unit, and I have need of a capable operator."

"But, speaking of boots-on-the-ground, you already have Major Goodliffe…"

"Val," Evan corrected. "You're not in the military anymore, don't refer to him or anyone by rank anymore unless we are on op and that's their cover."

Shizune nodded curtly.

"Yes," Evan continued, "in terms of line soldiers, he is the best assault combatant in recent memory from the paramilitary corps. Much better than you in terms of martial proficiency. In fact, so is Koucha…"

Shizune's face screwed up in disbelief at hearing this.

"Riwin?" Shizune spat in disgust, "you've got to be kidding me! He's just a sergeant, and a lackluster one at that. He's single-handedly responsible for Alpha's botched takedown of the AVALANCHE safehouse last year."

" _Operation: Stolen Prophet_ ," Evan said knowingly. "Yes, he performed admirably. Had your company succeeded in raiding that safehouse, _our_ informant would have had his cover blown. A cover that took 2 years to establish. Koucha was under orders from our end. Furthermore, he may just be a line sergeant in Alpha Company, but prior to that he was one of the elite in the Mobile Armor Division, from whence I plucked him for my unit. His cover is that fool that you know, the fool that everyone underestimates. Make no mistake _Crimson Lady_ , Koucha could wipe the floor with your pretty little bobcut and you'd never land a hit."

Shizune's face looked like a mess of angry confusion.

"Relax," Evan said with a smile that Shizune knew was fake but could have fooled her any other context. "It's Koucha who brought you to my attention. And yes, getting back to the subject at hand, why you, anyway? Your combat skill is the lowest in R0-414, and lower than what I would normally have scouted for entry into our organization, and you have a very long way to go in terms of theatricality, subtlety, and infiltration. So, why am I even giving you this tour? What is it that you can do better than anyone else that could possibly make you a dangerous in ways that my other weapons cannot?"

Shizune's expression softened-she was clearly at a disadvantage with this woman. Evan evidently knew everything, and conversely, everything that Shizune thought she knew was quickly turning into flipped realities, as real as the wooden paneling of this office space. There was no hiding anything from this blonde devil.

"You know about my hobby," Shizune said evenly, barely suppressing her reluctance to acknowledge her secret.

"That's a bingo," Evan said with the same feigned smile as before. "Very well, then. And so, today we shall have the naming of the parts. Follow me."

Shizune followed Evan to a door on the Eastern flank of the room. Beneath a hidden panel was a numerical keypad which Evan keyed so fast that it seemed she had only pressed one singular button in succession. The door slid to the side quickly, and Shizune followed Evan down the hallway that followed. They passed a large transparent window pane, the other end of which was an interrogation room. To Shizune's shock, both Riwin and Valerick were inside the interrogation room, shirtless and sweating. They were apparently also yelling at each other, their chests heaving visibly, but there was no sound.

"Um," Shizune stammered aloud.

Evan stopped and glanced to the left at the scene in the interrogation room.

"Oh, that," Evan said, dismissively. "They have been doing this _thing_ lately."

"Excuse me?"

Evan laughed suddenly.

"I'm sorry, that did seem fruitfully ambiguous, didn't it? What I mean is, they have been practicing sparring in small rooms like this for the last month or so. It's something Koucha came up with, but I believe Val is dubious of that boy's real intentions…"

Evan flicked an unseen switch on the wall beside the window and suddenly a chorus of panting and grunts began to emit from speakers somewhere in the ceiling.

In that instant, Valerick reversed positions with Riwin, putting the younger man in a vicious choke hold, which Riwin immediately broke with a lightning-fast elbow to the veteran's ribs.

"Asshole!" Valerick yelled.

"That's not today's safe word, is it?" Riwin mocked.

Evan smirked. "Observe-now that they have some distance between them, you can see their true physical combat qualities."

Just as Evan concluded her sentence, Valerick lunged at Riwin and began a series of blows so rapid that Shizune had a hard time actually _seeing_ the punches and kicks. The barrage would have been enough to lay low any opponent, but just as unbelievably, Riwin was weaving through all the blows.

He was fast. _Too fast._

It appeared to Shizune that wherever a blow should have landed, Riwin was simply not there. And it wasn't a fanciful dodge, either-there was an economy of movement to the way that Riwin moved. He sidestepped just enough, removed only the body part that was within a given blow's trajectory. Valerick, too, also had this same preternatural economy of movement that did nothing to lessen the lethality of his attacks, but instead maximized his speed and ability to deliver said attacks with a minimum of physical expenditure. It was the first time that Shizune had ever seen a Turk fight, and she would always look back on this moment in the years to come.

"Psssh," Evan said, somehow managing to sound disappointed. "They're not even trying."

"What?" Shizune said in disbelief.

"Fake sweat," Evan said as she slammed another unseen button somewhere on the wall.

"You guys are sad. Quit trying to impress the new blood," Evan said flatly over the intercom.

In an instant, both Riwin and Valerick froze in mid-form, turned to look at Shizune in unison, and shrugged playfully.

"They can see us?" Shizune asked, incredulous. "I thought this was an interrogation room with a one-way mirror."

"It is," Evan said, "but as a Turk, you will learn how to see through such things. Not literally, like some kind of goddamn mutant, but rather…. Well, you'll see."

"I don't understand," Shizune began, "how can they move like that? Have they been enhanced in some way?"

"You mean like SOLDIERs?" Evan said with a slight hint of irritation.

Shizune nodded.

"Well, yes and no," Evan replied. "We Turks are no normal operators. Our training regimen places us at the peak of human physicality so that we can, in the worst of cases, face down a SOLDIER-caliber enemy. However, unlike those peacock-helmed dullards, that same training regimen sharpens our minds into diamonds. _That_ is our edge against those mako-blue eyed fools…"

Shizune had now picked up on Evan's tone regarding the elite combat units of Shinra and swallowed hard before asking a question.

"Excuse me," Shizune began, "but you went from discussing a combat rhetorical of 'SOLDIER-caliber enemies' to just plain old SOLDIERs."

Evan smirked.

"The worst mission a Turk can get is the capture or elimination of a rogue SOLDIER."

"But, there has never been a _rogue SOLDIER_ ," Shizune said slowly, as if getting acquainted with a wholly alien word or idea.

"Not publicly, my dear, no there hasn't. But on my watch we have not been without incident. Do not be afraid-each and every Turk under my command maintains a professional mastery over many things, not the least of which is the hunting down of a SOLDIER gone wrong. And while we have had rogue SOLDIERs in the past, we Turks have never failed to capture or kill them. Not once. Do you know why, little one?"

Shizune found it odd that Evan addressed her as "little one" given that Shizune was evidently taller than Evan by a few noticeable inches.

Evan didn't wait for an answer before continuing.

"Unlike rogue SOLDIERs, who go feral and prowl as lone wolves, we Turks oppose threats as units-small, three- to five-person units comprised of expert agents. Each agent in a Turk unit is invariably an expert in everything. _Ace Turks_ , like Riwin and Val, for example, have surpassed mere 'expert-level proficiency' in several aspects of our trade and have become savant-level masters of at least two or more of the core skills. That is the requirement for the rank of Ace Turk. And so you see, each Turk unit is a small war party of superhuman geniuses whose complementary skills and talents form a web of deadly synergy. No SOLDIER can stand against that. No one can."

Shizune looked again through the window at the two shirtless agents. One was a stalwart war veteran she had heard plenty about-someone she personally looked up to as a military ideal, but rarely met in person, who was spoken of more often than actually encountered. The other was a blundering sergeant in Alpha who Shizune always thought belonged in another company, someone who exuded just enough proficiency to get by in her beloved Alpha-more of a liability than an asset. Here they were, both fighting at levels of skill that Shizune didn't know existed in un-Mako'd non-SOLDIERs. Fighting at such levels _in jest_. She stood there a moment longer, still trying to process it all.

"You said that Ace Turks have mastered two or more, erm, 'talents'," Shizune said, now pointing at the two shirtless, sweaty agents in the interrogation room. "What are they masters of, exactly?"

Evan looked at Valerick first, eyes narrowing slightly while she appraised his physiology before answering.

"Valerick Goodliffe: hand-to-hand assault combat, shock & awe tactics, and guerilla warfare. On top of that, he is our most effective interrogator and peerless when it comes to psychological manipulation. He has the uncanny ability to overpower a room with a commanding air instantly, and he has been known to turn this into a handcrafted cult of personality, rapidly engendering the respect and loyalty of those around him. You have likely been affected by at least some of this as one of his troopers in the Paramilitary Corps, no?"

"I am not really sure if-"

"Riwin Koucha, on the other hand," Evan continued, "he's almost like an unintentional 'yin' to Valerick's 'yang'-in terms of defensive combat, escape artistry, sleight of hand, tactical vehicle skill, disguise and infiltration, he has no rivals or equals. Furthermore, that boy has always been exceedingly good at making anyone severely underestimate him. A curious talent that has proven to be surprisingly effective."

Evan turned to regard Shizune and saw that Shizune was simply blinking in a stupor.

"Well, it looks like Riwin had you fooled, too. You thought he was the Alpha Company dunce, right? A martial liability? That guy there, he can dodge _anything_. Punch, kick, knife, bullet, it doesn't matter. And Valerick, he lands all his strikes and shots. Always. So, when we watch them spar like this, it's always fun to see how R0-414's best striker and best defender always seem to end their bouts in a stalemate. How about that?" Evan concluded jovially.

From inside the interrogation room, Riwin produced a white handkerchief from seemingly out of nowhere and began flailing it at Shizune like some kind of sad surrender flag, at which point Valerick tackled him to the floor and began an attempt at an arm-breaker.

"Are you coming," Evan said, "or would you like to keep staring at the men?"

"Hai!" Shizune blurted out in Wutaian, suddenly snapping to attention and jogging by the window to close the gap between herself and Evan. As she passed the window, she visibly fumed at her sudden linguistic outburst, hoping against hope that Evan didn't notice.

As Evan began to walk down the hall to a secured steel door at the far end, she turned over her shoulder and began speaking in perfect Wutaian.

"本当の任務だったら、今みたいなミスをすると死ぬぞ、確かに. あたし、こういう中東半端のことを許せない. 我々はタークスだ. 気を付けないとな、若者. いいか." ("If you make a mistake like that in the field, you're dead. I won't forgive half-assed mistakes like that. We are Turks. You'd do well to remember that, young one. Got it?")

"Yes," Shizune answered firmly in English. "It will not happen again."

The end of the hallway culminated in an uncharacteristically-neo-industrial set of double blast doors parted down the middle with the jagged crease of interlocking metal teeth. Upon this door was written "RESEARCH & LOGISTICS DIVISION." Evan gestured to a biometric palmprint scanner on the wall beside the blast door. "Go ahead, this is your new workplace."

Shizune placed her right hand against the biometric reader and the blast doors immediately retreated sideways into the walls. The sight that greeted Shizune was eerily familiar.

The room itself was a perfect cube, as wide as it was tall. The walls were that of unpainted, steel-reinforced concrete, and the ceiling was roughly 3 floors above them. Like the office atrium which served as the main Turk office space, this room appeared to have already been sectioned off into three tiers interconnected with stairs between each "floor," and an open atrium in the center. At the center of the second tier, a cylindrical office encased in transparent glass jutted into the middle of the atrium, suspended above the ground and situated in the exact center of the atrium and the room. From where Shizune was standing, she could already see that the room contained a desk at the helm of a computer workstation and an array of 9 monitors. Lining the remainings spaces of the floating office were various weapons of modular design which Shizune alone recognized. She could see server clusters of a very particular design installed in the corners of the floating office, like ritual techno-pillars around an artificer's altar. Shizune squinted her eyes to further scrutinize the equipment. Impossibly, those servers were the same type that Shizune had installed in her own apartment safehouse.

"How did you get this equipment?" Shizune asked in disbelief.

"We have ways," Evan said as-a-matter-of-factly.

"Those are Shinra Hyperion Clusters. Military grade."

"Indeed," Evan said. "In fact, they are truly one of a kind. You see, some crazy cheesecake lady stole the only prototypes, then the specs somehow got tampered with and the company couldn't make working models anymore. Weird, right? Complicated machines, these are. Unparalleled processing power, but very delicate. Shinra wrote off the whole project as a loss. Nope, you cannot get these anywhere. We had to steal these..."

"You stole them from my place," Shizune said.

"We co-opted stolen company assets and had them relocated from your funhouse to this laboratory," Evan explained. "I know you have been doing a lot of things in your free time that are professionally unscrupulous-frequent InfoNet hacks, unlicenced modification and amplification of weaponry, surveillance taps, etc."

"Are you trying to blackmail me?"

"No, little one," Evan said, "we don't blackmail people of your threat level. We simply kill people like you. Usually. But this time, I simply ask that you continue doing all of those bad things-just this time, do them for us. We'll even pay you to do it. You'll have a research and development budget that is just as unscrupulously deep as your imagination. Whatever it is you need for your tinkerings, just file the paperwork and we can get it. Well, that is, everything except really rare items like Natural Materia or something insane like that."

"Seriously?" Shizune said, her eyebrow raised in a dubious arch.

"Yes!" Evan said, emphatically. "You've always wanted to be a Turk, right? This is how you become a Turk."

"But, I can't do what Riwin and Valerick were doing…"

"That will come in time. That's what the training regimen is for. Val and Riwin will see to it. Besides, I can assure you-R0-414 is already overly combat/ops-capable. What we need is a force multiplier. The world continues to march toward technological over-reliance, and we need to remain ahead of that bleeding edge. Seeing as how we have discovered the one who is always pushing said bleeding edge in secret," Evan said as she gave Shizune a smack on the shoulder that made Shizune wince in surprise, "I figured we could address that need by giving you a job."

Shizune stared in silence for a beat, still bewildered, before donning a resolute expression.

"What would you have me do?"

"Make me a wire tap."

"That's it?"

"Make me the the most malevolent wire tap system in history. That's your first assignment. We'll call this first test of your skill _Project: Arcos_..."

* * *

 **SHINRA SCIENCE DIVISION, MATERIALS LAB #32**

 **ROCKET TOWN**

 **DISC 03 - SEPTEMBER 2015**

Riwin and Shizune's infiltration into Materials Lab #32 went precisely as planned. At 0300 Rocket Town Standard, the two former Turks evaded perimeter security and helped themselves into the lab with such ease that to the casual observer it would have appeared that the two of them had simply come home after a long day's work. Per the work logs that Shizune had pulled up when they had gained access to the lab computer, she had approximately four and a half hours to hack the InfoNet and perform her metallurgical analysis of the blade she had brought with her. Riwin had the venerable honor of perimeter watch, something he absolutely loathed to do given his proclivity towards talking and joking, but being the consummate professional that he was, everything continued to go according to plan.

"Perimeter is still clear," Riwin subvocalized over his vox link. He was perched upon the laboratory's rooftop corner, scanning the area with his naked eyes. "Intrusion has not been detected, situation is nominal. How is the office work?"

Inside the lab itself, Shizune's gloved fingers danced across the keyboard of the Shinra InfoNet terminal in the administrator's office which overlooked the lab workspaces. The pale green font of the code on the screen reflected in her glasses and she grinned in satisfaction after a final keystroke.

"It's all still here," Shizune said over the vox link to Riwin.

Riwin responded immediately. "None of it's mine."

"What?" Shizune asked.

"The porn. It's all Val's."

"I'm talking about the security backdoors and protocols I installed," Shizune said flatly.

"And I'm talking about _porn_ because you're sooooo serious and it's funny to see you blush when I say ' _PORN_ '," Riwin said, over-enunciating the word with relish.

"If by 'blush' you mean 'puke,' then by all means, watch away."

"Eww, girl-I had no idea you were into that extreme stuff."

Shizune flared her nostrils in disgust and irritation.

"I do have a serious question, though," Riwin said.

"What is it?"

"Why didn't you take the _Eye of Oblivion_?"

"Apparently, the _Eye_ is just a head-fake. It is indeed a natural materia, which would fetch it a high price on any black market, but in its damaged state, it is only really capable of producing a peculiarly-shaped, but intense gravity field. Apparently, the blacksmith created the mythril dragon box statue thingy with an intricate lock which would only open when that gravity field was applied to it. Other than that, the _Eye of Oblivion_ is useless. It is merely the key to unlock the actual treasure of the Nagase clan-the unfinished Akatsuki."

"Akatsuki? You mean that thing you put in the microwave? It looks like an old sword."

"Firstly," Shizune said, still setting up her point trace re-routes on the system before actually initiating the biometric search, "I didn't put it in a 'microwave'-that thing is a chemical spectrometer specifically tuned for metallurgical analysis. The SSD uses it to analyze new materials for the rocket engine. I'm using it to to find out the actual properties of the Akatsuki."

"Akatsuki... 'Red Moon'?, right?"

"Correct."

"But it's green," Riwin countered. "And old."

"Yes, it's green," Shizune admitted without hiding her irritation. "That's the corrosion taking over."

"Why would anyone make a katana from metal that would corrode like that? Didn't you say your dad made that sword and that he's a legendary blacksmith? Why would he do that?"

"I don't know if he's my dad, so stop saying that. And to answer your question, there is no good reason for making any sword out of metal that is known to oxidize like that, so I have no clue. That's why I'm conducting this analysis."

"But you said that only true members of the Nagase clan can activate the Eye, right?"

"Yes…"

"So that means that he's your dad."

"Look, just drop it for now, ok?"

"Alright, alright-fair enough, Shiz. But you cared enough to bring that thing here, to detour us to Rocket Town where it's crawling with Shinra. That doesn't seem tactically-sound to me. But I trust you. You must think this thing is important."

Shizune opened her mouth to reply, but no response came. She simply remained silent for a moment before answering sincerely.

"Thank you, Riwin."

"Don't mention it. Just get us out of here before the place wakes up. How are we looking?"

"The analysis has about just under 2 hours remaining."

"Copy that. How about your biometric search?"

"I just initiated it," Shizune said. "There's really no telling how long that will take, specifically, though personally, I don't anticipate it will take longer than 3 hours at the most."

"That's just as well," Riwin said, "it'll be daylight in about 3 hours, and we need to be long gone by then."

"Indeed. And hopefully by the time we leave here, we'll know where we are headed."

"I can't wait to see Val and the Boss again," Riwin said wistfully. "Where do you think they went after we got kicked out?"

"It's anyone's guess at this point," Shizune said. "You were all far better than me at evading capture, so they could really be anywhere. Anywhere _except_ Midgar, I would imagine."

"That was a boring answer," Riwin said. "Let's make it more interesting."

Shizune raised a knowing eyebrow.

"You're taking bets?" Shizune asked.

"Always."

"In that case," Shizune began, "I think Val went North, likely passing farther than Bone Village. Away from any settlements. He always had a thing for cold isolation. The Boss seems like she has a lot of business in the North. Shinra knows that, so I do not believe it benefits her to be anywhere near the Northern Continent. This is a stab in the dark, but I'm going to say she went to Mideel. What say you?"

Riwin's thinking groan broadcasted with a tinge of static over the vox link before he answered.

"Val followed the love of his life to Gold Saucer."

"Of course he did," Shizune said sarcastically. "And the Boss?"

"She went to…. Cosmo Canyon."

"Come again?" Shizune said, aghast.

"Yeah, Cosmo Canyon," Riwin said again slowly, as if convincing himself as well. "She was always so critical of anyone who believed that 'spirit of the planet' mumbo-jumbo. So, perhaps she embedded herself in with the lifestream hippies."

Shizune stopped typing for a moment and considered the prospect.

"Hmph. That's actually plausible," Shizune said. "I guess we'll see."

A few seconds of radio silence passed as Shizune and Riwin both became occupied with their separate duties. The click and hum of the lab spectrometer and the faint sound of keyboard clicks filled the empty lab.

"Hey Shiz?"

"Yes?"

"So, the temple maidens…"

"Shrine maidens," Shizune corrected.

"The shrine maidens, they just let you leave with the Akatsuki?"

"They did," Shizune said. "In fact, they insisted on it, saying it was my so-called birthright…"

* * *

 **NAGASE SHRINE, SOUTHERN WUTAI**

 **DISC 03 - JULY 2015**

The pale light of the half moon was stifled by passing clouds, making the normally vibrant red of Nagase Shrine's tile rooftops seem a sombre grey. All else, save for the "statue" in the center of the square courtyard, was black as pitch. Four torches set at the corners of the statue's rectangular plinth burned through the night, casting a warm glow which underlit the statue and made the late blacksmith of the forgotten Banshu shogunate seem to preside over the border of night and dawn. An owl song echoed from somewhere in mountain treeline, the sound now mingling with that of the wind rushing through the surrounding forest.

Shizune sprinted silently, stopping for cover at each of the stone lanterns which lined the main exit walkway out of the shrine. It had been years since she had needed to employ this shadow step technique, and she now cursed herself for not having kept up the practice. Tucked under her left arm was the curved lacquered box engraved with the family seal of the Nagase clan (長瀬)-the very same box which had been revealed as hidden within the statue of the mithril dragon of the shrine's reliquary after Shizune had inadvertently activated trigger mechanism. Kiyoku Adachi, head priestess of the shrine, had been overwhelmed when Shizune had activated the natural materia they had all referred to as the "Eye of Oblivion." This, in and of itself, Kiyoku had insisted, proved that Shizune was indeed of the Nagase bloodline, as the Eye could only be activated by true Nagase members. Kiyoku had subsequently insisted that Shizune stay so that they could continue briefing Shizune on her duties and legacy as the last surviving member of the Nagase clan. They were even planning on sending an envoy to the family of the deposed Shogun of Banshu in the morning to inform him of the news. Preparations were also underway for a feast the following evening.

Shizune learned of her lineage in detail, and the supposed legacy of the clan. She learned of how the blacksmiths of the clan led innovation during the warring states period of Wutai's bloody history, a particularly difficult feat considering the general lack of resources during that time. She learned of how Shizune's supposed grandmother, the warlord Kotono Nagase, vehemently disapproved of her father's chosen bride, the Banshu poet Yae Kashiwabara, citing the young poet's failing health and lowly artist background.

She had heard all of these things.

Yet Shizune, not knowing how to process any of this, defaulted to her _modus operandi_ and made silent preparations to disappear under the cover of night. Even more puzzling to Shizune was why she was even stealing the relic blade at all.

 _Rei Kashiwabara, owner of a cafe._

 _Shizune Mai, former Turk and Alpha Company MP in service to the Shinra Electric Power Company._

 _Shizune Nagase, daughter to a blacksmith and a poet of Wutai._

Her core identities-completely disparate from each other while also simultaneously real and functional-were in the warring process of invalidating each other. Perhaps there was a proper place for each of these roles in this chaotic state-machine that had become her life in the past five years, but whatever arrangement of these selves made the most sense was far beyond Shizune's understanding on this night.

Shizune reached the mountain staircase which led back down to the town of Aoyama, from where she would easily be able to steal a vehicle and make the drive back to Banshu where she was based. She tensed her muscles and made to continue her stealth-sprint, but something made her stop. She turned to look at the fire-lit statue of the blacksmith once more, as if to confirm something, yet, the only thing she was able to verify was her own unsettled soul.

She leapt from her hiding place in the shadow of the last lantern and into the darkness of the forest stairway path.

* * *

 **SHINRA TOWER, 66TH FLOOR**

 **MIDGAR**

 **DISC 02 - MAY 2005**

"...and that's the main idea," Evan concluded. "I want you to build an automated watchdog system which monitors multiple channels of comminique in real-time, which searches for flagged terms out a of a database which we control. An all-seeing-eye and an all-hearing-ear to everything. That's Project: Arcos."

Shizune was nodding slowly whilst pondering the system requirements when a telltale digital chime at the door made both of the women look at the video panel beside the entrance. Riwin and Valerick appeared on the fish lens viewer. They were now dressed in their full Turk suits-Valerick had his arms folded in front of his chest behind Riwin, who was shoving an eye extremely close to the camera. The viewer took a fraction of a second to regain focus as Riwin's giant eyeball filled the screen.

After Shizune had unlocked the door and let the two Ace Turks in, Riwin let off a long, drawn-out whistle of surprise as he and Valerick walked into the Research & Logistics Lab.

"I thought you said this place was going to be our new VR…" Valerick said, disappointed.

"And I thought it was supposed to be the new bar!" Riwin exclaimed.

"Well, it's a toy factory now," Evan said. "From now on, if either of you needs specialized equipment, put an official request in through this office, and Shizune will see to it."

"Anything?" Valerick asked.

"Anything," Evan replied. "Specialized weapons, ammo, armor, all that sort of thing. If you can imagine it, Shizune can make it, over-spec and post-haste."

"I can?" Shizune blurted out somewhat incredulously, immediately cursing herself for thinking aloud.

"Of course," Evan said. "You're a Turk, now. Turks don't simply meet expectations-we exceed them. _That_ is our norm. I have to be going now, but please remember: if you have any questions, at any time, _never_ hesitate to take a moment to think it through, then do what I would do. Good luck, little one."

With that, Evan Oris casually disappeared through the double blast door exit, and Shizune was now alone with Riwin and Valerick. She stared blankly in silence between the two senior Turks.

"It's a bit much, isn't it?" Valerick said, head slightly bowed and eyes closed, apparently deep in thought.

"Pardon?" Shizune said.

"The first day tour," Valerick added, his baritone filling the empty lab. "The Boss doesn't really mean to intimidate, she is simply being upfront about our standards."

"I'm not intimidated," Shizune said immediately. "I'm just…"

"We were all like that on our first day," Riwin said. "I mean, to be honest, I've seen worse."

"No kidding?" Shizune asked, feeling more comfortable speaking casually to Riwin since she still couldn't shake the image of Riwin Koucha, the blunderhead from Alpha Company.

"Yeah," Riwin said with a smile, "no worries-you'll be fine so long as you don't fuck it up."

Shizune scowled.

"Riwin screamed on his first day," Valerick said.

"You don't have to tell _everyone_ …" Riwin said.

"Well," Valerick said, "to be fair, I suppose it was because when it was your first day, you saw me and the Boss fighting. If I were you, I'd scream, too. Just not aloud."

"So," Shizune said, "everyone 'accidentally' witnesses a Turk bout on their first day here?"

"Yeah," Riwin said, "it's not on purpose, but it never fails to happen, which is an eerie Turk thing."

"And you saw the Boss fighting with Valerick?"

"I did," Riwin said, the memory of that time making him sound actually detached for a fraction of a second. "It wasn't in deadly earnest or anything, but I will never forget it for as long as I live. In fact, I think that was the one time I ever saw her go hand-to-hand with anyone since, even if it was just practice. Val, you ever seen the Boss fight more than once?"

Valerick, eyes still closed, answered after a moment of introspection.

"I've seen her engage opponents in melee on only three occasions."

Shizune listened intently, but was also now surprised to see that Riwin, too, was waiting in rapt silence for Valerick to continue.

Valerick looked at Riwin and Shizune in silence before creasing his eyes and raising an eyebrow inquisitively.

"And…" Riwin said.

"And what?" Valerick said.

"Aren't you gonna tell the story of the Boss' fights?" Riwin asked, exasperated.

Valerick closed his eyes again and frowned disapprovingly.

"That's classified."

Riwin and Shizune both groaned in unison.

"Hmph," Shizune said, "'Classified' even at the Turk level? Just how high does this organization go, I wonder."

"What are you talking about?" Riwin asked.

"In my experience," Shizune said, "there is no limit to how classified some information and organizations can be, but surely there is a ceiling. If we agents are all the parts of a gun, then who holds it? Who pulls the trigger?"

"I thought you were a techie, not a philosopher," Riwin said.

"She does have the meat of it," Valerick interjected. "But, Ms. Mai, you really still don't get it, do you?"

"Pardon?"

"You asked the question, who is the leader of the Turks, correct?" Valerick asked.

Shizune, now recognizing the alias of Major Valerick Goodliffe, repressed the urge to snap to attention and shout out a firm "yessir." Instead, she simply nodded thoughtfully.

"The leader of the Turks just left this room after giving you a tour."

Shizune dipped her head forward, her eyes widening and peering above her square-framed glasses as she regarded Valerick in disbelief.

"Yeah," Riwin said, "there's a reason why we all call her 'Boss.'"

"In the world of the Turks," Valerick said, "there exists no one higher."

* * *

Evan strode purposefully toward her office. "I'm not to be disturbed for the next two hours," she announced aloud to no one before walking into her office and locking the door behind her. Once she was done triple checking the lock on her door, she made her way to her desk. Taking a seat in the plush black leather office chair, she keyed a sequence on a security pad somewhere underneath the desk, causing a large screen monitor to rise out of the front of her desk. Evan proceeded to open one of the side drawers, producing a video game controller. In the next moment, the screen before her activated, and the words "Please Stand By" were displayed prominently over a pale sepia backdrop. Evan curled her legs up, bringing her knees to her chin and raising the controller up to her face in an uncharacteristically childish pose.

"Finally…" Evan said under her breath.

The next screen that booted, however, wasn't the game Evan was so intent on playing.

The face of a young man with clever, hawkish features appeared on the screen. The man wore angular, stylized sunglasses of a peculiar design that made them appear bisected down the center. An uneven side part of platinum blonde-white hair spilled over the left side of the man's face, hiding part of his face, but providing an unobstructed view of the materia earring which was dangling conspicuously from his right ear.

"Kezu Deprieve," Evan said, "I was just about to call you."

"With a controller in hand? Indeed..."

Evan placed the controller on the desk nonchalantly as if the remark hadn't been made.

"How is the new addition?"

"Just fine, thank you," Evan said, "She appears to be no less daunted than Riwin or Valerick were on their first days here."

"Can she make Arcos a reality?"

"Well, I suppose we shall see."

"She has three days to make it operational."

" _Three days?_ " Evan repeated. "Are you insane? I'm no engineer, but even I know that's not humanly possible."

"I already told you," Kezu continued, "We shouldn't have let her into the organization to begin with. She has too much of a reputation and may not even be physically capable of completing the training."

"Kezu, three days is not enough. You _do_ remember what Arcos is supposed to do, right?"

"Indeed. I'm the one who set the design specifications."

"Then you know that-"

"Giovanni said three days."

Evan clenched her teeth, exhaling evenly in simmering silence.

"So. You're actually hearing me now."

Evan closed her eyes. "Please tell Giovanni that it will be done in three days' time."

"It better be. Otherwise she's out. Are we clear on that?"

"Yes, sir."

* * *

 **SHINRA SCIENCE DIVISION, MATERIALS LAB #32**

 **ROCKET TOWN**

 **DISC 03 - SEPTEMBER 2015**

"Mit-235…"

Shizune had spent the last hour rapidly poring over the data of the Akatsuki materials analysis. During that hour, Riwin maintained radio silence and the only thing that accompanied Shizune was the incessant drone of the InfoNet terminal as it neared the completion of the biometric search Shizune had tasked it with. Complete radio silence-that is, until Shizune reached the core elements analysis of the Akatsuki report.

"Come again?" Riwin responded.

"It's a rare, but naturally-occurring isotope of Mithril," Shizune said.

"That's what you woke me up for?"

"You were sleeping?"

"No…wait, did you say Mithril?"

"Yes," Shizune said, her eyebrows still beetling with concern as she continued to stare at the analysis.

"But, Mithril is extremely corrosion resistant," Riwin said.

"You're thinking of Mit-238. That stuff is way more common and used for armor plating and penetrator rounds. This stuff-Mit-235-it's _really_ rare," Shizune explained.

"Really?" Riwin said in disbelief. "The stuff that rots quickly and turns green- _that's_ the rare, neat stuff?"

"It's not a terrestrial element," Shizune said. "It's probably from a meteorite. Plus, Mithril tends to only oxidize this way if it's carrying a strong Mako charge…"

A soft, triple-bell-tone from the InfoNet terminal sounded.

"Riwin, the biometric search concluded," Shizune said, completely failing to hide her excitement. She pocketed the printed out materials analysis and with a solid kick to the table slid the wheeled office chair she was sitting in over to the terminal. Now staring at the read out, Shizune said, "Geez, that's a long trail…"

"What?" Riwin said over the comlink. "Where are they? Where are we headed?"

Shizune's eyes darted to and fro and her slender index finger ran frantically over the mousewheel as she scrolled down the endless list of GPS data points. She had them grouped according to person, separated into different files and windows. The first of these windows was for the data matching Valerick Goodliffe. The page scrolling terminated in a blinking cursor at the bottom of 3-years' worth of GPS points all centered around a single location that Shizune knew by heart.

"OK," Shizune said, "it turns out we were both wrong-Valerick is in Fort Condor."

Riwin made a noise over the comlink that sounded like a suppressed hoot.

"Well, shit," Riwin said. "It's not like we should be surprised, I guess. I mean, Ft. Condor _was_ his last assignment before _Zero Protocol_ shipped everything to hell."

"True enough."

"And you're sure the trail ends there?"

"Not only does the trail end there with a tracepoint as recent as yesterday," Shizune said, "apparently his biometric signature has been popcorning all around that area for the last 3 years or so."

"No doubt about it, then," Riwin said, his smile evident even over the vox. "OK, ok-how about the Boss?"

Shizune was about to answer when all the lights in the lab went on simultaneously and warning sirens and alarms went off all throughout the base.

* * *

 **NAGASE SHRINE, SOUTHERN WUTAI**

 **DISC 03 - JULY 2015**

The pale light of the half moon was stifled by passing clouds, making the normally vibrant red of Nagase Shrine's tile rooftops seem a sombre grey. As Shizune disappeared into the shadows of the forest staircase down the mountain, Akatsuki relic box tucked under her left arm, Kiyoku Adachi stood alone in the darkness of her room on the second floor of the maiden's quarters, watching Shizune's exodus from her window. Impressed with Shizune's shadow-stepping technique, a soft smile played across Kiyoku's serene patrician face. She raised a hand to her mouth, the overly-long sleeve of her chamber gown draping over her hand and making her curved hand look like a paw.

"She has left with the Akatsuki," Kiyoku whispered with a hint of amusement.

Kiyoku stood in silence a moment longer, nodding affirmatively, seemingly to nothing.

"No," she said softly, "It is her. And that is her birthright."

A wind rustled through the trees and made Kiyoku's _fuurin_ wind chime sing ghostly tones.

"Understood," she whispered. "We will observe from a distance."


	6. File 05 - The Devil's Toys

**UNITED PEOPLES OF FORT CONDOR**

 **HIGH MARSHALL GRIGGS' OFFICE**

 **DISC 03 - AUGUST 2011**

The dull brass pendulum of the grandfather clock marked the marching of long seconds and tense silence as the late afternoon sunlight spilled through window blinds in a wash of bright sepia. High Marshall Ernest Franklin Griggs stood an elaborately-engraved antique desk as he perused the personnel files in silence. The smoke from his Behemoth-bone pipe wisped up into the ventilation grates in the ceiling, and his sun-creased left eye narrowed even further as he read each file. His other eye was hidden perpetually behind a kevlar-aramid weave eyepatch, the stylized phoenix symbol of the United Peoples of Fort Condor embossed proudly upon it. Griggs inhaled audibly for a long breath, then exhaled in a foreboding cloud of tobacco smoke. Staring long and hard at one of the files in particular, he wrinkled his nose and spat into the garbage bin beside his desk. His disgusted frown was evident even through his scrappy, deep-brown beard.

Known across Gaia as "The Lost Veteran," High Marshall Griggs, leader of the self-styled United Peoples of Fort Condor, was known by a different moniker amongst the denizens of that stronghold. To them, he was "The Gladius"-the sword that protects. Nearly all of the inhabitants of Fort Condor were in some way warriors and soldiers, and each in some way had been either benignly convinced to join the UPFC or personally saved by Griggs himself. Griggs was a grizzled fighter who understood the heart and soul of the warrior, and that in and of itself had apparently been enough to rally the first group of disenfranchised mercenaries to his banner in the initial incarnation of the UPFC a little over a decade prior.

Since that time, the UPFC had grown steadily into a free principality which subsisted on a steady stream of mercenary contracts from all throughout Gaia. Unlink Shinra who had a corporate image to uphold and keep unsullied, the UPFC was known as an organization of principles, and the fulcrum of those principles was Griggs himself. His war record-the panoply of facial scars he had accrued in his decades as a line soldier-was something that he wore openly and proudly. As if to further offset his martial acumen, he wore his shoulder-length hair in a loose, short ponytail which lent him the aspect of a wandering Wutaian swordsman. Despite his lofty rank of High Marshall, Griggs was often seen wearing the same thing as his subordinates-combat fatigues and tactical webbing, sleeves rolled up to just past the elbow. The choice of outfits was no mere aesthetic concern-even though the UPFC had enough personnel to handle all of their mercenary contracts, Griggs himself was known to deploy as well on occasion, as need arose.

Griggs was not known to speak very often, but whenever he did, it was always pertinent. His voice was the low gravel growl of a predator at rest.

"' _Nicodemus'_ ," Griggs said slowly. "That is what he'd called himself when he came here."

Griggs finally threw the files down on his desk and looked at the guest sitting comfortably in one of the cushioned chairs. The man, wearing a non-descript black suit, white dress shirt, and tie, was not smiling, but seemed to be somehow amused.

"As you can see from the files," Kezu said, "his real name is Valerick Goodliffe."

"What are you doing here?" Griggs said with open disgust. "I don't want to have anything more to do with you people."

"And yet, you parlay with our false informant 'Nicodemus'," Kezu said nonchalantly.

"That's prudence in action," Griggs countered. "Furthermore, that was to get a line in with Shinra, _not_ the Turks."

"The Turks _are_ Shinra, High Marshall."

"And yet, you're not. I know how the Turks work."

At this, Kezu had to chuckle.

"Considering what you know, as a former member of the Aeronavy high command, it's a wonder that the company let you leave," Kezu said amusingly.

Griggs issued another smoldering cloud of smoke, letting Kezu's jab go unanswered.

"It is quite an outfit you have going on here, High Marshall. I noticed the construction. Are you adding another command fortification?"

"Get to the point."

"I wish to propose a trade," Kezu said.

"What do you want?"

"Though it's embarrassing to admit," Kezu began, "we have yet to ascertain the whereabouts of those individuals. It's been a year since they escaped. We want to ask you to help us to look for them."

"Within the jurisdiction of the UPFC. I see," Griggs said.

"Of course," Kezu said. "Naturally, Shinra can't publicly open a contract with the UPFC for assistance. That's politically distasteful and, well, contrary to the company image."

"No shit?"

Kezu laughed again, as if genuinely amused by Grigg's sarcasm.

"Turks," Griggs spat, as if the word itself had a rancid flavor. "What's to stop you suit-monkeys from simply coverting your way into our territory?"

"We are not always terrible people, you know," Kezu said. "We can play amicably when the ideal outcome is achievable. This time, we are politely asking you to please keep an eye out for these fugitives-especially since you have had personal dealings with their second-in-command, Valerick Goodliffe. If you happen to find them within your borders, please apprehend them-alive if possible-and let me know. I'll be here to take them off your hands personally, post-haste."

Griggs had a habit of staring out of his office window whenever contemplating decisions. This time he resisted the urge to do so. He'd be damned to take his eyes off a Turk in his own office.

"What are you offering in return?" Griggs asked, though the question sounded more like a threat.

"An unofficial non-aggression pact. Shinra will leave the UPFC alone for an entire calendar year."

"That's it?"

"Think of all you could do with the UPFC in a year's time if you didn't have to worry about Shinra at all. Isn't that worth it?"

"That aside, I don't see how it is in your best interest to let us roam unchecked for a year."

Kezu sighed.

"No, you're right. The company would prefer not to have any kind of competition, commercial, industrial, military, or otherwise. However," Kezu said, "we'd much rather have those former assets in custody. That's how important this is for us."

Griggs broke his borderline angry-stoicism and raised an eyebrow.

"Who are these people you fools were stupid enough to train then let off the leash?"

"People like me," Kezu said.

Griggs took another long drag from his pipe, venting the smoke out from both nostrils as he rested his left fist on the small of his back.

"One more condition," Griggs said.

"What, pray tell, might that be?" Kezu asked, appearing mildly annoyed.

"I want their full files."

"That's a bit much, don't you think? The game is called 'give and take'. Not-"

"In case you haven't noticed," Griggs interrupted suddenly, "I don't play 'games' with the lives of my men. You ask me to go up against a group of foes that Shinra's elite cannot subdue, and you want me to do so with inadequate intel. _That's_ a bit much, don't _you_ think?"

Kezu threw his hands up in exasperation.

"You want these ex-Turks in custody? I need to be properly equipped and prepared for them. Otherwise all of this is folly."

"I'm not authorized to simply give you their full files," Kezu said. "Besides-there isn't much left on them. They covered their tracks pretty well, all things considered."

Griggs bent down slightly to press an intercom button on his desk.

"Mr. Deprieve will be leaving now. Please have an armed escort ready to convey him to his chopper."

"Just a moment, High Marshall," Kezu began. "Hear me out-I said, I'm not authorized to simply give you the full files."

"Then we have nothing further to discuss," Griggs said.

"What I mean is, I'm not authorized to do so, but I could _hypothetically_ get careless and just leave them in the bathroom on the way out."

Griggs again raised an eyebrow. There was a knock on the office door.

"You could then acquire whatever we have on these fugitives. Then act on that as you wish. Hypothetically-speaking, of course."

Griggs chuckled, though it was a mirthless sound.

"Hypothetically, yes," Griggs replied.

Kezu gave a subtle nod to Griggs as he stood up to leave, and Griggs seemed to also return the nod.

"Well then, I guess it is as you say. I should be going now," Kezu said.

As Kezu left the office, Griggs overheard him asking the escorts about stopping at a bathroom on the way to the helipad.

* * *

Griggs stepped into the armored prison cell, ducking under the low clearance of the porthole. His personal honor guard waited outside the cell as Griggs closed the door behind him. He folded his arms across his chest and regarded the newly-acquired personnel files on his private data slate, then turned his cyclopean gaze upon the prisoner in the cell before him.

The prisoner was chained to the opposite wall, arms and legs splayed out from his body in an X shape. The prisoner was shirtless and wore only a loose-fitting pair of orange prison trousers. His head hung limp in front of him, chin resting upon his chest, a mop of unruly brown-black hair hiding what remained of his face. The evidence of torture was rampantly visible all throughout the prisoner's body. Though the prisoner appeared to be in somewhat of a catatonic state when Griggs and his men arrived, he seemed to twitch awake in the next few moments. He turned his face up to look at Griggs. A dried rivulet of crimson spilled out his swollen-shut right eye and cut a visceral line down his cheek.

"Valerick…" the prisoner said through parched, cracked lips.

"Yes," Griggs said contemptuously. "We know."

Griggs stared on a few more moments before continuing.

"Kezu Deprieve came looking for you today. He wanted to speak with you urgently. Don't worry though. I already talked with him on your behalf-he does not know you are down here. No one will."

Raging screams filled the chamber.

* * *

 **SHINRA SCIENCE DIVISION, MATERIALS LAB #32**

 **ROCKET TOWN**

 **DISC 03 - SEPTEMBER 2015**

The sudden warning alarms made Shizune yank her USB data drive out of the computer with one hand and then rapidly initiate a factory reset on the InfoNet terminal in order to literally kill the machine. The comlink bead in her ear was a litany of Riwin Koucha's most panic-crafted curses.

"Shiz!" Riwin said, "This whole place is awake and looking for us."

"Yeah, no shit!" Shizune said as she sprinted past the chemical spectrometer. She grabbed the Akatsuki blade out of the unit and dove onto the floor, kick-sliding on the polished floor like a baseball player. She came to a stop underneath one of the data server racks which was suspended off the floor. There was just enough room for her to crawl under here, but the servers themselves were separated by several feet. She would have to sneak out the exit using the crawlspaces as cover.

A slickness in her right hand made her look down-in her haste to retrieve the Akatsuki, she had grasped the old blade too tightly and was now slowly bleeding all over the blade.

"Shiz!" Riwin com'd in. "What's your current position and status?"

"I'm still stuck in the lab, en route to our predetermined egress point. You?"

"So far I haven't been spotted. I'm lying flat on my back on the flat roof of the highest guard tower in the center of the compound. I can't see much for right now, but I hear the usual-company detachments assembling, dogs barking."

"Copy that, I'll wait for your signal to start egress."

"Roger, I'll let you know in a bit, just be ready to jet on my mark, got it?" Riwin said.

"No problem," Shizune said.

Despite the genuine danger, or perhaps because of it, both former Turks found this commotion exhilarating. Now all that had to be done was to wait for that security gap to form in the lab section, and to tell Shizune when to start sneaking out. A run of the mill activity for a former Ace Turk, until Riwin saw two royal-navy-blue-clad knights with brown leather tactical webbing, oversized pauldrons on their left shoulders, and elaborate buster swords slung across their backs. They were in jogging straight for the lab Shizune was in.

"Shiz," Riwin said, already beginning to shadow step down from his bird's nest and toward the lab. "We've got company."

"You never have any good news," Shizune hissed.

"SOLDIERs. Two of them. A 2nd and 3rd Class, by the looks of it."

Shizune's heart skipped a beat. She had all the necessary training and indoctrination to handle SOLDIERs, but she had only ever been on a rogue SOLDIER op once, and that was with the full support of R0-414. Riwin's voice over the comlink seemed to respond to Shizune's apprehension as clearly as if she had spoken her fears aloud.

"Don't worry, girl," Riwin said, "I got ya."

Shizune's mind began to go into overdrive, her former training starting to kick in. She was already thinking several steps ahead. In an odd moment of stillness, she remembered Evan saying something randomly prosaic to her.

"You are my unbroken blade…"

Shizune glanced again at the worn Akatsuki blade in her right hand. A trickle of blood was running along the edge of the blade and left thin, snaking trails of blood on the tiled floor beneath her. She again cursed herself for her carelessness.

The door to the lab flew open with such force that the slam of the door rebounding off the wall sounded like a gunshot followed by the whining of weakened steel hinges.

Riwin was right-rushing immediately into the lab were two SOLDIERs. The 3rd Class SOLDIER came in first. He was armed with a buster-sized katana with Wutaian script engraved upon the flat of the blade. From where Shizune hid, she could also see his elaborately-crafted left-hand gauntlet whose most prominent feature was an over-abundance of dual-slotted materia.

The SOLDIER behind him was a 2nd Class. A female SOLDIER, this woman sported her vibrant green hair in a tight ponytail, tied high. She was a dual-wielder-she sported a longsword in each of her gloved hands. Though the weapons themselves were of a simple design, Shizune could tell that these were no mere factory-pressed steel facsimiles.

The split second which followed seemed to hang in complete stillness as Shizune recognized the woman.

* * *

 **SHINRA TOWER, LOBBY**

 **MIDGAR**

 **DISC 01 - FEBRUARY 1999**

"For fuck's sake, Shizune…"

Shinra Military Police cadet, Private Lina Rosewater leaned against the blue-marbled lobby pillar, her arms crossed pugnaciously across her chest, chin raised, as she regarded fellow cadet, Private Shizune Mai, with a condescending sneer. Lina's emerald mane shimmered like jade flame as she rolled her eyes and shook her head disapprovingly at Shizune, who was now on her knees sponging up spilled coffee on front of all the other MP trainees.

"I'm sorry, Pvt. Rosewater," Shizune said through gritted teeth.

"' _I'm sorry_ '?" Lina mocked. "Ha! 'Sorry' helps no one. 'Sorry' isn't going to get you into any of the elite MP Companies. I heard you were gunning for Alpha."

Shizune bunched up her fists, feeling the leather of her gloves flex against her knuckles.

"I aim only for the best," Shizune seethed. "Nothing less."

Lina threw her head back and released a banshee laugh.

"The best, huh?" Lina said, now pointing squarely at another cadet. "Hey, Vega! Which of the MP companies is the best at spilling coffee?"

Private Chanceton Vega, a 10-foot-tall, mountain of a recruit with jet-black hair who had been trying not to get involved, turned to face the both of them.

"I wouldn't know," he said casually. "What I _do_ know is that none of those companies have anyone as full of themselves as you, Lina."

All the assembled cadets laughed.

Lina wrinkled her nose and sneered at Vega.

"I'll have you all know," she said, now spinning on her heel to address the entire lobby, "I'm better than this! Better than all of you! While you all will end up field grunts, hopeful to simply make Sergeant someday, I'm going straight to the top! SOLDIER 1st Class!"

Lina's sudden proclamation, the thousandth of its kind since she joined the MP Academy nine months prior, was met by a variety of differing responses from the cadets gathered in the lobby.

Lina looked down again at Shizune, who was now just finishing the last of the coffee clean up. Shizune, who had only entered the academy six months ago, had become a target of Lina's constant complaining, mainly because they were members of the same training platoon, where Lina was squad lead. Shizune did her best to ignore the vainglorious "Queen of Thorns," but cracks were beginning to form in her patience at the nigh-daily berating. Shizune stood slowly to clean herself off when Lina continued her tirade.

"And when I become a SOLDIER," Lina said, "I'll make sure to request you, Shizune, as my personal equerry…"

Shizune spun in a whirlwind, right fist cocked, sending a knockout blow straight to Lina's chin.

The entire room went dead silent.

But instead of the satisfying gristle-crack Shizune was expecting, she felt her entire right forearm arrested in an overpowering grip.

General Zedrick LaVend, Commander-in-Chief of the entire Military Police Corps, had appeared at Shizune's side and had apparently gripped her forearm with his right hand. The scene was that of a father stopping his small child-Shizune was a petite Wutaian and Zedrick was a giant of a man from Goblin Island. Shizune's entire forearm was covered by the General's single right hand.

He glared down at Shizune, and she relented, unable to hide her embarrassment. Lina looked genuinely afraid, squinting her pixie-esque face in preparation for the right hook that never came. When she realized that Zedrick had stopped the blow, she scoffed proudly. Until the General turned his glare upon her as well.

While still looking squarely at Lina, Zedrick spoke in the voice of command incarnate.

"Pvt. Mai, come with me immediately."

* * *

 **SHINRA SCIENCE DIVISION, MATERIALS LAB #32**

 **ROCKET TOWN**

 **DISC 03 - SEPTEMBER 2015**

The emergency klaxons of the base were still blaring their piercing siren tones as the two SOLDIERs made their way slowly and cautiously through the lab. Shizune gauged that she could remain undetected in her current position, but equally assessed that so long as the SOLDIERs were here, there would be no egress out of the lab itself.

Shizune continued to watch her hunters carefully from underneath the server rack. From the looks of it, this 3rd Class was Rosewater's squire. His overly-cautious way of leading the room sweep told Shizune that he was new to his rank of 3rd Class, likely fresh out of the SOLDIER recruitment pool. Shizune knew from her time in R0-414 that older SOLDIERs-veteran SOLDIERs-had a tendency to throw caution to the wind, whereas their inexperienced counterparts had the opposite tendency to protect themselves when in potentially life-threatening situations. Shizune had learned that this was mainly because new SOLDIERs were still coming to terms with their superhuman physiologies. In other words, they were still behaving like mortals.

Despite that, the fact that the 3rd Class squire was out in front of 2nd Class Lina Rosewater was very telling-Lina always had a thing for leading from the rear and putting her subordinates in the vanguard.

For as much as Shizune hated to be encumbered by Rosewater again, she knew that patience and subterfuge would be her best friends in this situation. With any luck, the SOLDIERs' sloppy, bullish ways would effectively prevent them from being sufficiently thorough in their room sweep, leaving Shizune the chance to egress once they were gone.

Luck failing, she would have to rely on Riwin to create a diversion and draw them away. In either case, Shizune knew what she most certainly shouldn't do in this situation, as an old mentor had taught her years ago.

* * *

 **SHINRA TOWER, 66TH FLOOR**

 **MIDGAR**

 **DISC 02 - DECEMBER 2007**

"Brains versus Brawn," Valerick said as he steepled his thick fingers in front of his face. "Though it's a cliche, never was there a more appropriate analogy of what the Turks are, with respect to enemy SOLDIERs."

Shizune sat across from Valerick in the Turks meeting room. Of all the things she had learned about, and of all the things she had learned to do in the last year, the idea of facing a rogue SOLDIER in combat was the most fanciful thing. Although she showed none of her apprehension, Valerick seemed to know what Shizune had been thinking.

"I know," he said, "it seems like some kind of movie. That we would have to face down and destroy our own superhumans."

Shizune beetled her eyebrows.

"May I speak frankly?" Shizune asked.

"Always."

"I get that sometimes SOLDIERs will go rogue and that we have to stop them, one way or another. But, I've seen them in action, both here in Midgar and in Wutai. In applied combat operations. You can't physically win against that."

Valerick leaned back in his seat, folded his arms across his chest and exhaled. "One-on-one? No-the odds are most-decidedly _not_ in your favor in such a scenario. If, when considering _winning_ against a SOLDIER in a fight, and your mind consistently defaults to _physical confrontation_ as a means of defeating the enemy, then you are thinking like a SOLDIER. You must instead think like a Turk-we are the triumph of reason over pure strength. When fighting a SOLDIER, you must actually eschew strength."

"Pardon? _Eschew_ strength? You mean, ditch it?" Shizune asked, perplexed.

"Use strength when necessary," Valerick explained, "but lateral thinking will almost always subvert a SOLDIER. Don't counter a punch with another punch. Instead, create a situation where that SOLDIER's punch will cause him to lose the fight.

"SOLDIERs are Shinra's ultimate frontline vanguard. They are trained-nay, _indoctrinated_ -to rush towards danger, not away from it. Even in close combat situations, conventional melee weapons alone cannot mortally wound a SOLDIER. Therefore, they are typically not trained to block, evade, or parry. I'm not saying that they cannot do those things. Rather, that their fighting philosophy is one of brute force advancement and assault. So, use that against them. If, for example, you need to divert a SOLDIER away from a position, then create a diversion so tantalizingly dangerous, so promising in terms of action, that they simply must default to their training and run towards it."

Shizune nodded slowly as she listened to the normally-stoic Valerick launch into a lecture about fighting the devil.

"When we 'fight' SOLDIERs, we lure them into traps. We use the momentum of their combat spirit to make them dive headfirst into where _we_ need them to be. We create opportunities for them to choose to be in our traps."

Shizune raised a finger to her lip as she pondered what Valerick had said. She was coming to find that between the capriciousness of Riwin Koucha and the pragmatism of Evan Oris, the cold combat logic of Valerick Goodliffe-as well as his ability to have a cerebral conversation about it-was something she found immensely intriguing. She also noticed that, unlike almost everyone else in her life, Valerick never asked Shizune to simplify her language, and that was somehow oddly refreshing to her. As such, Shizune had capitalized on every opportunity to question, probe, and learn from him.

"Out-thinking SOLDIERs as a group… I can conceptualized this better now, thank you," Shizune said. "However…"

"Go ahead."

" _Combat Theoretical:_ suppose the force ratio is 1:1," Shizune said.

Valerick frowned.

" _Combat Practical:_ there are no straight fights against a SOLDIER," Valerick said. "Either we play dirty, outnumbering and outsmarting them, or we get the hell out of there."

* * *

 **NORTHERN CONTINENT**

 **150 KILOMETERS NORTH OF BONE VILLAGE**

 **DISC 03 - 22 days after Zero Protocol**

The SOLDIER took off like a bolt of lightning, eyes locked forward, sprinting. His muscular legs kicking up snow and dirt as he charged at Valerick like a bull. He was going to try and finish him in a single stroke.

"I'll show you how a Turk fights," Valerick said as he dove forward, his rifle held like a spear.

He fired once and activated his Wind materia which blew him under the falling arms of the SOLDIER. No time to pause, he activated it again straight down below himself, causing him rise rapidly into the air. The blade swung with an audible whoosh right where his legs had been a scant second before. Valerick drew his revolver and fan-fired it rapidly from the hip, aiming for the SOLDIER's legs and pelvis. Valerick knew the SOLDIER would protect his torso, if anything.

The shots landed. The SOLDIER took a knee, his shin cracked under a round. Despite this typically grievous injury, the SOLDIER stood up on his broken leg, his musculature, another act of superhuman determination and enhanced physiology making up for the lack of skeletal support.

The SOLDIER roared back, his enhanced lungs giving him the voice of a lion. He limped forward at a solid jogging pace, his buster blade raising again. Valerick responded by sprinting off to the side into the wood line. The SOLDIER cleaved at the air behind him and trees began to shake, crack, and fall around them. He chased Valerick for another fifteen feet before letting out a groan of genuine pain.

Valerick swung around to see the SOLDIER's lower abdomen impaled by the four-foot-long sharpened length of wood from Valerick's trap. The SOLDIER yanked the spear free from his stomach and let loose an explosive blast of Fire Materia from his outstretched, gauntleted hand, causing the surrounding snow to vaporize and dead trees to burst into flames.

The sudden explosiveness of the attack caught Valerick off guard and he stumbled back raising his Wall spell while trying to keep his distance. Crashing through the fire, the SOLDIER's massive blade split open Valerick's lips and swished down the front of his coat. Valerick drew his black knife, thrusting it forward as he rolled into and off the SOLDIER's body to crash into the steaming ground below. The SOLDIER, to his credit, maintained his footing. Turning to glare down at Valerick, he gurgled in a frothing rage-Valerick's knife was sticking out of the SOLDIER's throat. The SOLDIER took a step forward, heavy and slow. Another step. Valerick had to reload and he could no longer cast anymore spells. He pushed back on his hands and feet, staring up at the bloody war god coming towards him.

Despite himself, Valerick began to recall something that Evan had told him when they were all still together as a unit.

" _You are the hammer and the anvil…"_ Evan had said, seemingly another lifetime ago.

Valerick braced himself for the next few moments of combat which he knew with a warrior's serenity might be his last.

 _What did it matter? I will either slay this enemy now and continue living without purpose, or I will die trying and meet the Boss in the next world. I know this much, at least..._

The SOLDIER dropped.

First to one knee, then the other, then face down.

* * *

 **SHINRA SCIENCE DIVISION, MATERIALS LAB #32**

 **ROCKET TOWN**

 **DISC 03 - SEPTEMBER 2015**

The concussion of a distant explosion rumbled through the lab, making the SOLDIERs immediately don their opaque helmets and adopt ready stances.

 _Alright, Riwin!_ Shizune thought with a cheshire cat grin. _Diversion in play, now to let the SOLDIERs take the bait…_

Almost like clockwork, both SOLDIERs began rushing for the exit to head out in the direction of the blast when second and third explosions rocked the base, stopping both of them in their tracks.

Amidst the new explosive bass rumbles, Shizune's "huh?" of surprise went completely unheard.

A fourth explosion, this time much closer to the lab, made instruments and containers fall from shelves and actually forced the SOLDIERs to regain their footing. The next few moments were punctuated at random intervals by the sounds of metal and plastic things bouncing around and settling on the floor. When all was completely silent, Shizune heard a static chirp in her vox earbud.

"Don't worry, girl," Riwin said almost over-confidently over the coms. Shizune could almost hear his devil grin. "I'm about to breach."

Shizune's eyes went wide as she realized that Riwin was creating the opposite of a diversion, and that she was unable to break radio silence to wave him off.

An ear-cracking explosion sent the lab door off its hinges and sailing directly at the two SOLDIERs, who expertly feinted to either side to avoid the flying door. Immediately afterward, two smoke bombs came sailing into the room, hitting the floor and spewing solid, sepia smoke in all directions. A strange hooting noise was diffusing all around, as though a group of hooligans had flooded into the room. As the SOLDIERs began to ready their weapons, a rapid-fire salvo of 12 shots came from the right side of the room. Four rounds found their mark, nailing the 3rd Class SOLDIER squarely in the side of the head. Two of the rounds glanced off the solid metal helm, and the remaining two were flattened and lodged in the helmet itself. Another 6 rounds peppered the 2nd Class throughout her torso, but she made no move to indicate that anything at all had happened. The remaining two rounds rang bell tones off of each of the SOLDIERs' main melee weapons.

Jetting out from her hiding place in the lab, Shizune took advantage of the smokescreen. Based on the trajectory of the rounds, the last known positions of the SOLDIERs, and the subsequent bullet hits, Shizune analyzed the layout of the battle that had just started. As she shadow-sprinted through the clouds of smoke toward where Riwin had secured the exit, she subvocalized into the vox.

" _What the fuck are you doing here?_ " Shizune seethed in mid-sprint.

"You're welcome!" Riwin said louder than he had intended to.

It was all 2nd Class Lina Rosewater needed.

She lunged out of the smoke cloud with blinding speed, swinging both swords in axe-handed double-guillotine cuts. Due to the warcry and the displacement of smoke, Riwin had just barely enough time to stand as straight as an arrow to slip between both slashes, though he was now face-to-face with a 2nd Class SOLDIER.

Shizune immediately dove into a feet-first powerslide aimed squarely at Lina's ankles. The gamble payed off, and Lina was knocked onto her side in a deafening clatter of plate armor, tactical equipment and swords.

Riwin and Shizune immediately bolted for the door, now a gaping maw of jagged metal and concrete after Riwin's breaching charge. They almost made it out of the lab when Shizune felt like a car had crashed into her left side. The next moment saw her sailing through the air and crashing into an equipment shelf some 15 feet away, collapsing an entire shelf's worth of lab equipment on top of her.

Riwin had just enough time to duck under the 3rd Class' lateral buster katana swipe. The slice cut the air with a miniature sonic boom, momentarily clearing that portion of the room of the smoke. Riwin used the momentum of his sudden ducking, channeling that into a floor roll, but the 3rd Class SOLDIER wielded his oversized weapon with unnatural ease. In a split second, the 3rd Class already had his buster katana over his head, prepared to bring the sword down on Riwin in an execution blow.

Riwin ceased his dodge roll on the balls of his feet and sprang off the floor to the ceiling. He reached up and grabbed on to some of the piping that snaked across the ceiling at intervals, and gave a rapid, one-two kicking strike straight to the head of the 3rd Class. At Ace Turk levels, both kicks would have normally been enough to snap the neck of any normal opponent, but against the 3rd Class, the kicks had all the efficacy of a light-hearted tap dance upon a granite floor.

The 3rd Class grinned and brought his buster katana down for the killing blow, ready to bisect Riwin vertically, straight down the middle. However, the 3rd Class was robbed of his kill when Lina grabbed the 3rd Class by the reinforced carry handle on the back of his combat webbing and threw him halfway across the room.

"That's _my_ mark!" Lina spat as she slashed murderously at Riwin with diagonal cross-cuts.

* * *

 **LOCATION UNKNOWN**

 **DISC UNKNOWN**

The resounding clang of metal on metal brought Valerick out of his fragmented nightmares and plunged him back into the world of the living.

This time, he woke with sand and salt water in his lungs. He retched violently as he heaved the seawater out of his lungs and stomach. His hair was a tangled mess of sun-lightened brown. When Valerick finally calmed down enough, he was able to take in his surroundings.

He was kneeling in the shade of a massive shipwreck on the shore of a beach. The midday sun beat down hard in all directions, and the rhythmic sound of the waves was a treacherous lullabye that sang to the fatigue in his very bones. Behind him was the endless deep-blue vista of the ocean, though which ocean, Valerick could not recall. Before him was what seemed to be an eternal expanse of white-yellow sand dunes. The horizon stretched out ahead of him like an eternity of yellow haze. Kneeling here in the shade of the broken ship, with seawater, blood, and drool dripping off of the scraggly beard he suddenly became aware of, he felt that the entire world was simply composed of two halves and nothing else-ocean and desert, and that he had somehow come to be here on the border of the salted world.

 _She's still dead. She warned you anyway._

Valerick slumped down further, eventually falling over to one side. In the distance, on the horizon that shimmered of heat, he thought he saw a green man dancing on the top of one of the countless dunes.

* * *

 **SHINRA SCIENCE DIVISION, MATERIALS LAB #32**

 **ROCKET TOWN**

 **DISC 03 - SEPTEMBER 2015**

"That's my mark!" Lina spat as she slashed murderously at Riwin with diagonal cross-cuts.

But her deathblows found no target.

Riwin was nowhere to be found.

Lina scanned the surrounding area with wild eyes. Some parts of the room where the fight was commencing had been momentarily cleared of smoke from the overpowered sword swings of the SOLDIERs, but the smoke bombs Riwin had deployed were still issuing smoke, and the room began to fill yet again with milky ochre. Lina growled in frustration as she began to swing both her swords wildly.

The sound of more equipment dislodging and clattering to the floor made Lina spin to face the wall to the right of the blown-out exit door where Shizune had been sent crashing into a shelf a few seconds earlier. Just as before, Lina had pinpointed the enemy position based simply on sound alone. Not a difficult thing for a SOLDIER to pull off, but Lina Rosewater needed no finesse, subtlety or even accuracy in this case-in two-seconds' time, she could shred the entire western wall of the lab.

Lina crouched into a killing pounce and screamed the name of her finishing move in an ululating banshee warcry.

"EMERALD CUTTEEEEERRRRRR!"

However, just as she was about to lunge forward, her 3rd Class subordinate, whom she had literally cast aside moments earlier, issued a battlecry of his own and surged past her in a whirlwind charge. So incensed by the audacity of her subordinate, Lina faltered in a red haze of pure anger, allowing the 3rd Class to truly shoot past her and towards the target area. He had his buster katana held low at his side and led his flying sprint with his armored shoulder.

* * *

 **DOCK JUNCTION 5C**

 **PORT OF JUNON**

 **DISC 03 - XX days after Zero Protocol**

Despite himself, Valerick stared at the massive mako cannon which had been christened, the _Sister Ray._

He moved along the dock, staying within the throng of sailors and laborers who swarmed the junction. The port of Junon, particularly the harbor, was never an empty place, and there was always a multitude of human rivers flowing in and out of the various ships in port. The hardest part was getting into the harbor area itself. Shinra had always had decent security around Junon in general, particularly at the Aeronavy HQ and the harbor and port authority. Though, once he managed to con his way in past the port authority security check, Valerick knew things today would get exponentially easier. Now all that was left was to find an appropriate ship to hitch a ride on.

Valerick slipped out of the crowds and hid in a small space between two shipping containers that had yet to be loaded on their intended vessels. From this spot, Valerick could also spy a decent range of ships at anchor in the immediate vicinity. Based mainly on the cargo that was being loaded onto each of the ships he could see, Valerick theorized their potential destinations, and none of them looked particularly promising.

Eventually, Valerick narrowed down his options to two ships. The first option was the _Emerald Queen,_ a heavy cargo freighter which, from the looks of its bounty of mako reactor parts, was probably headed to Gongaga, Shinra's newest mako plant. The second ship was the _Anko Dancer_ , a mid-sized trawler which, based on the name and her load of salted hydra-fish, was likely headed for Wutai.

While Wutai was farther away from Midgar, and Valerick had no doubts he could disguise himself adequately, even in Wutai, the idea of hiding in all that fish was the final factor for his decision-he'd take his chances on the mainland instead.

Valerick pulled his cloak about him once more and slipped back into the morass of people flowing in the direction of the _Emerald Queen._ Just as he left the tiny space, a sailor sporting a jumpsuit with a stylized anchor and anglerfish patch on the shoulder slipped into the pocket space and lit up a cigarette.

* * *

 **SHINRA SCIENCE DIVISION, MATERIALS LAB #32**

 **ROCKET TOWN**

 **DISC 03 - SEPTEMBER 2015**

The 3rd Class found his mark.

He had impacted the area with such speed that his buster katana had driven straight through the wall itself. The impact shockwave of his attack blasted the smoke away from the area, and now vision was completely unobscured near the crumpled equipment shelf. Conversely, all the smoke had been displaced to the area Lina was standing. Sure enough, the two intruders were there, just as the 3rd Class had imagined. The male intruder had indeed evaded them and returned to help the female intruder, who still appeared to be half buried in heavy equipment.

But something wasn't right.

The two intruders had their hands and arms extended outward, towards the SOLDIER's neck. His eyes followed their extended arms in horror, as he saw a green, rusted blade now protruding from his neck, just above the armored gorget. In that moment, his mind reeled and he was finally processing the pain of the wound.

As he had been indoctrinated to do, he defaulted to his mental training, which objectively told him he would eventually shrug off this wound, that his mako-enhanced physiology would automatically kick in and begin rapid healing and even re-routing of his arterial flow, if necessary. Such enhancement even dulled normally-excruciating levels of pain to mere scratches.

Objectively, he knew this.

And this is precisely why, in that split second, he began to panic.

The pain shouldn't have been _this_ intense. Something was horribly amiss.

The next fraction of a second began to move in slow motion for the 3rd Class.

He saw his own blood begin to jet out of the wound in his neck.

He saw that copious fountain of blood burst into green flames.

He saw the flame also envelope the blood that was on the rusted blade, and he felt the pain of his entire bloodstream literally on fire.

He felt his ribcage burst open in several places as jets of flame and gas erupted violently out of his torso at the physically-weakest points.

His musculature deformed instantly as muscles spasmed, and ultimately contracted to dessicated, burnt leather. The contraction was most severe in his largest muscle groups, where the supporting bones underneath, also being ravaged by flame at the molecular level, snapped and split, unable to bear the sudden stress. The Akatsuki blade, also still lodged deeply in the 3rd Class' neck, snapped in half under the opposing destructive forces.

The very last thing the 3rd Class felt-the last life experience he took with him back to the planet's lifestream-was the bright green flame incinerating the gelatin of his mako-blue eyes.

A concussive explosion of green fire devastated the entire laboratory and flooded the room with the 3rd Class' blood. The blood itself appeared to be no benign thing, as it too was still aflame. The blood went everywhere. It was as if a balloon had been filled to capacity with blood and burst in the center of the room.

Lina Rosewater, SOLDIER 2nd Class, was also bathed in the blood which burned of green flame. She screamed, half out of defiance and half out of pure shock.

And that was all the opening Riwin needed.

In the very next fraction of a second, he had buried the remaining half of the Akatsuki blade just below Lina's left shoulder blade in an upward, lung-puncturing thrust.

Riwin jumped away immediately, already shielding his face with his arms and bracing himself for the impending explosion which never came.

Instead, Lina just gave out all the breath in her lungs and dropped to the floor. The wound around the Akatsuki blade was hissing and sizzling, and the veins below Lina's skin began to emit a sickly green glow. Steam which reeked of chemically-burnt flesh began to rise from her body and fill the room.

"Come on, girl," Riwin said, bending down to lift Shizune to her feet. "We gotta get the fuck out of here."

Shizune grimaced in pain. Her ribs were broken again in two places. While she clutched her side with her left hand, she made sure to retrieve the pieces of the Akatsuki blade and secure them within her duffel bag. Riwin already made to sprint for the door, but he stopped when he realized that Shizune was not keeping up with him.

"What the fuck are you doing? We have to split!"

"About egress-how about a change of plan?" Shizune said in shock, her voice hoarse.

Riwin followed her eyes to the impact crater left from the charging attack of the slain 3rd Class SOLDIER. The wall around the crater was giving way and pieces of the wall were falling away to reveal another part of the lab. Within that darkened room, both Shizune and Riwin were able to make out a strangely familiar warning sign.

"EXPERIMENTAL ESCAPE ROCKET PODS."

* * *

 **SHALLOW CAVE**

 **30 KILOMETERS SOUTHEAST OF MITHRIL MINE**

 **DISC 03 - FALL**

Valerick had forgotten how long it had been since he first entered the cave, whose entrance was sealed off by an impossibly massive wall of scales, like a warm boulder. He knew it had been a very long time that he had been trapped here. He knew how to survive in the cave-how to start and maintain a fire, how to hunt and scavenge for food-though from where he learned these skills, he could not recall.

 _Combat Theoretical: I am not actually '_ surviving' _..._

He stared at the fire. It was slowly dying. The cave itself was always moist. Always damp. Always dripping with cold water that stank of peat moss. It was hard to keep kindling dry and viable in this place.

But that was to be expected in the swamp. How he knew that that was to be expected, he could not recall.

 _Combat Practical: I am not actually surviving; I am simply '_ not dying _.' Not like her. She warned me anyway._

Valerick heard a loud noise like sandpaper grinding against the earth. More foul water fell from the cave ceiling's stalactites and onto the weak fire, making the flames sputter and hiss. Though, just like Valerick, the faint flame continued to not die. The wall of scales-that warm boulder blocking the cave entrance-began to move, as if it were scrolling from right to left. More sandpaper noises flooded the cave as the speed of the movement began to steadily increase, making more water fall and fascinating Valerick with its essence.

Valerick reached a hand out to the wall of scales. He held his hand in place as the wall moved rapidly under the skin of his palm. The texture was real, visceral. It was the warmth of an inconceivably ancient predator. Recognizing this, for as much as Valerick wanted to curse and kill the wall of scales for sealing him in this cave, he had to revere its power of death and the many truths that it had made Valerick learn in his time here.

 _You know, we were named after you. She used to have one of you as a pet. Though much smaller. Maybe that [_ was] _you._

Raging screams filled the cave.

* * *

 **SHINRA SCIENCE DIVISION, MATERIALS LAB #32**

 **ROCKET TOWN**

 **DISC 03 - SEPTEMBER 2015**

A security squad of Charlie Company MPs flooded into the materials lab, swords drawn, but each and every one of them began retching and gagging as soon as their eyes adjusted to the scene inside.

The entire laboratory was a ravaged mess, and the interior appeared to have been splattered with blood. It was even dripping from the ceiling in a grotesque mimicry of cave stalactites. The blood appeared to be fueling green flames that did not seem to singe anything besides the blood itself.

In the center of the slaughter was a female 2nd Class SOLDIER clutching at her side with her left hand. She was sitting on the floor in the center of the lab, cradling the head of a 3rd Class SOLDIER who looked like a mess of hamburger in the rough shape of a man. The only thing that indicated that he had been a SOLDIER at all was the helmeted head she was clutching on her lap. They were both covered from head to toe in blood and gore.

A Charlie Sergeant shoved one of his vomiting men aside as he barged his way to the front.

"We need to get you to a hospital?" the MP Sergeant fumbled.

The Sergeant's mind blanked-he had not intended for that to come out as a question, but it was the first time any of them had seen a wounded or dead SOLDIER.

"Fools!" the 2nd Class SOLDIER growled ferally, albeit through the gritted teeth of pure pain. "They are getting away!"

"But you're, you're… wounded?"

"The rocket pods…" The SOLDIER seethed. "Follow them…"

Just then, a rocket exhaust blast issued from the hole in the wall and an experimental emergency escape pod erupted out of the roof of the lab.

"GO!" the SOLDIER said with such force and hatred that all of the Charlie MPs cleared out of the lab and went running for their pursuit vehicles, all their eyes still trained intently on the rocket pod which was climbing fast.

* * *

 **SECURITY CHECKPOINT CHARLIE-FIVE-DELTA**

 **UNITED PEOPLES OF FORT CONDOR**

 **DISC 03 - JUNE 2011**

The fully-armed guard regarded the ID for a long moment.

"This looks nothing like you," he said.

Valerick scratched the side of his shaggy-haired-head rapidly, like a dog scratching fleas. He was jittery. His head jerked suddenly left, right, up, and down. His gaze never lingered in any one place for more than a second. He looked everywhere except at the face of the guard who was talking to him. Not that it would have mattered, as all the guards of the UPFC wore balaclavas.

Valerick mumbled something under his breath.

"Come again?" the guard said.

Valerick mumbled yet again.

The line behind Valerick began to grow as the scene continued to play out.

Now all of the guards at the checkpoint were beginning to take notice of the mongrel at the gate. As if in unison, all the UPFC guards thumbed off the safeties of their assault carbines.

"I'm only going to ask you one more time," the guard said.

"I said," Valerick suddenly blurted out, his rank breath misting out of his rancid mouth, "I want to talk to your boss."

The guard seemed to pause. He took another quick moment to glance down at the ID Valerick had given him, and then again at the man standing before him.

"And who did you say you were again?"

"Valerick Goodliffe," Valerick said plainly.

"It says here you're 'Rufus Shinra'."

"I mean, yeah," Valerick said, blinking rapidly. "I'm Rufus."

"So what did you want with our boss, 'Rufus'?" the guard asked, not hiding his contempt.

"What?" Valerick responded, suddenly twitching and spinning around as if talking to someone behind him. All the guards raised their carbines at Valerick.

"I told you the first time," Valerick began mumbling, "I'm Galerick Voodliffe. And you're a fucker, you know that? I'm going to Valhalla, you know? Lemee-"

The guard knocked Valerick out cold with a well-placed rifle butt to the right temple.

* * *

 **VALEWOOD FOREST**

 **68 KILOMETERS SOUTHWEST OF ROCKET TOWN**

 **DISC 03 - SEPTEMBER 2015**

The pillar of smoke rising from the treeline was all that Charlie Company needed to track down the fallen emergency escape pod.

The MPs secured the perimeter of the crash site before moving in. There appeared to be no signs of escape from the immediately area. This made sense to the Charlie Company Sergeant, as they had been tracking the rocket pod and remained in solid pursuit of it ever since it left Rocket Town.

With guns and swords drawn, the first platoon moved up to the escape pod which was half-embedded in the ground at an awkward angle. The Sergeant himself was monitoring the situation from his command vehicle outside the established perimeter.

"Open that fucking hatch, Corporal," the Sergeant said over vox. "All other assets, standby."

" _I don't really think anyone could have survived this, Sarge,_ " the young Corporal responded.

The Sergeant slammed his fist on the coms console in front of him, eliciting gasps of shock from the technicians seated at the monitoring stations.

"Firstly, whoever these punks are, they killed a SOLDIER and critically-wounded another, so _nobody_ let your guard down. Secondly, I hope to fuck these assholes are still alive, because I want a piece of them!"

The comlink crackled to life again.

" _Sarge? We opened the hatch..._ "

"What's the situation?"

" _Um, it don't make sense..._ "

"Well, come on, out with it! Are those fuckers alive or dead?"

Silence and static filled the comlink for a long second.

"Report!" the Sergeant barked.

" _Two occupants confirmed, but it just doesn't make any sense. One of them is 2nd Class Captain Rosewater, critical condition. The other one is, god, I dunno, body parts? The remains of 2nd Lieutenant Azazel?_ "

The Sergeant gritted his teeth audibly. The command vehicle interior was dead silent.

"Corporal," the Sergeant com'd, "The SOLDIERs' equipment, combat webbing, helmets-are they wearing them, or are they anywhere in the escape pod?"

The light static of other operational vox com traffic murmured in the background as they waited for a reply, though the sinking feeling in the Sergeant's gut told him the answer he already knew.

" _Negative, Sarge. No combat equipment or helmets, just duty fatigues._ "

"Fuck," the Sergeant said. "You've got to be kidding me…"

He immediately bent over the command console touch panel to key up a secure line to headquarters. A female voice answered.

" _Rocket Town Medical, Jennifer Wayland, speaking._ "

"This is Sergeant Hux McAllister, Charlie Company. Have the two SOLDIERs from the attack on the lab been admitted? What's their status?"

" _I'm sorry Sergeant McAllister, but when our EMTs arrived on the scene, the SOLDIERs were gone._ "

* * *

 **CHOCOBO EXPRESS #346**

 **BOUND FOR COSTA DEL SOL**

 **DISC 03 - SEPTEMBER 2015**

 **1 DAY AFTER ROCKET TOWN INCIDENT**

Riwin Koucha sent his best devil grin straight at the young woman who couldn't help but blush. They were passing each other in different directions in the narrow hallway of the First Class car. Riwin could tell she was susceptible to his charms from from the first moment he saw her sneaking glances at him from the other end of the hallway. Still in all, there was another young woman who warranted his attention at the moment.

As he unlocked and slid the door aside to their private car, he heard the nearly-inaudible signature sound of gunmetal sliding out from leather. He entered anyway, turned his back to the single occupant, then secured the door once more.

"She's not _that_ pretty," Shizune said.

"Are we jealous?" Riwin said, beaming his best ladykiller grin now at Shizune.

Shizune rolled her eyes in disgust and holstered her sidearm.

"Alright," Shizune said, "I'll stop pointing this at you if you agree to stop pointing that fake-ass smile at me."

Shizune was sitting up, legs propped up on the bench. Riwin had fashioned a hasty torso cast for her using his expertise with Earth materia, and Shizune wore a bathrobe over the whole thing. That, combined with her own constant application of her Restore materia should ensure Shizune's recovery by the time they reached their destination.

"I got you something to eat, you ungrateful nerd," Riwin jabbed.

"Look," Shizune said, pointing out the window. "You can actually see the top of Gold Saucer from here."

Riwin took a seat opposite Shizune and looked out the window. In the distance, just over the top of the Corellian Alps, Riwin could see the mushroom caps of Gold Saucer shining like burnished gold in the setting sun. He whistled at the vista outside the window as he began to peel one of the bananas he got from the food car.

"You know," Riwin said through a mouthful of banana, "I've been to Gold Saucer a lot for work, but I never really appreciated how pretty it could look."

Shizune looked as though she was about to say something, but instead continued to stare at the landscape as it passed by in the window.

"That's so like you," Riwin said.

"What?"

"You pretty much suck at actual small talk. Especially when something is bothering you. So, since we're pretty much cooped up in here for the next couple of days, you mind sharing?"

Shizune flared her nostrils in frustration.

"Though I loathe to admit it," Shizune said, "you always seemed to be able to figure that out about me."

Riwin folded his arms across his chest and chuckled heartily. "Well, are you gonna talk, or are we just gonna be all frowny-bear the entire trip?"

"' _Frowny-bear_ '? You're never gonna let it go, are you?"

Riwin shrugged innocently. "What? That was the best cover we ever had, remember? _Operation: Rainy Sunday_ when we were that married couple and I kept calling you that?"

Shizune narrowed her sharp eyes at Riwin. "Fine. Never forget it. I'm the best wife you'll ever have, cover or not."

Riwin laughed genuinely. The sun continued its descent behind the alps, and the cabin darkened several shades.

"I don't know why this even matters," Shizune said, staring at the table between them, "but, I just keep thinking that we almost really fucked up back there in Rocket Town."

Riwin nodded.

"What do you think the boss would say?" Riwin asked honestly.

"That's just it," Shizune said, "She'd be pissed. Beyond pissed. Shit, Riwin-blowing our cover, not to mention _literally_ blowing up the target location."

As she rambled, Shizune fiddled with some empty candy wrappers on the table between them.

"We'd be fired," Riwin said casually.

"Yeah, no shit."

As the sun continued to set, the lights in the private car automatically flickered on, bathing their little room in a stark fluorescence.

"Well," Riwin said, "I'll tell you what-you can tell the boss how sorry you are in person, when we meet up with her again."

Shizune exhaled sharply and closed her eyes. Riwin saw that her expression softened to a kind of strange serenity that he found uncharacteristic of the Wutaian tinkerer.

"The boss…" Shizune said speculatively.

"Yeah, Evan-you didn't happen to see where her biometric data led to, did you?" Riwin asked anxiously.

"No, unfortunately we got found out before I could properly read her coordinate leads."

"Yeah, but, you still got the data right?"

"Sure do. USB flash drive."

"Well, come on, let's have a look!" Riwin said like a kid on his birthday.

"With what?" Shizune said flatly. "You see any computers around here?"

"Yeah, there's that…" Riwin said, trailing off and scratching the back of his head.

"At least," Shizune said, "we know that Valerick is somewhere in Fort Condor."

"There you go!" Riwin suddenly blurted out. "Finally-you're starting to think positively. See, that's your problem. You're always such a-"

Riwin felt the air suddenly become heavier, and he noticed that Shizune was glaring at his very soul.

"...genius! You're always the total genius, always making like, ingenious things, you know?"

"Indeed."

"Come on, Shiz! What did you think I was gonna say? You know what-don't answer that. Because whatever _you_ thought I was gonna say, that's all _you_ , my dear. I mean, you're not that _thing_ you were thinking; _that_ just comes from your negativity. God! You know what, I'm just fucking this shit up. Cut me some slack, ok?"

Shizune folded her arms across her chest and winced in pain.

"Riwin Koucha-your singular saving grace, your _one_ redeeming quality, is that you make me laugh," Shizune said without laughing at all.

"Yeah…" Riwin said, scratching the back of his head again. "So, yeah, anyway, let's just keep thinking positively. And speaking of positivity and success, would you mind explaining to me why that boogery old Akatsuki sword was able to instantly explode a motherfucking SOLDIER? Because, you know, I actually still have trouble hearing out of this ear from when he exploded right in our faces, and I have just, you know, never fucking seen that happen before."

Shizune's eyes narrowed again and the anger bled away from her face.

"You in the mood for a physics lecture?" Shizune asked with an excited glint in her eyes. The way she had asked, it was almost as though she had asked, _Hey-you want a pizza?_

Riwin raised an eyebrow. "Am I ever?"

"Do me a favor and get the blade fragments out of my bag for me."

Riwin complied, fetching the two halves of the broken Akatsuki out of the duffle bag and placing them gingerly on the table in front of them. He was taken aback by the fact that, besides the corrosion that had been there from before, both pieces of the Akatsuki were completely clean of any traces of blood.

"You remember how I said that Mi-235, the rare isotope of Mithril, can carry a mako charge?"

"Yeah."

"The Akatsuki has a pretty high-level mako charge, but it's not a normal mako charge," Shizune explained. "Unlike 99.99% of the Mithril in the known world which carries a positive mako charge, the Akatsuki carries a negative mako charge. In other words, it's _anti-mako_."

Shizune reached out to the table to pick up both halves of the broken blade. She fit the two halves together at the broken seams and continued to explain.

"SOLDIER, Shinra's superhuman combatants, are made that way in a process which primarily involves getting physically bombarded with positively-charged mako energy. It affects them down to the molecular level. Every atom in their body now carries an inherently positive mako charge. Though that charge is monumentally miniscule, the cumulative effect of combining each atom's mako-charge into the total composition of the human body which is composed of several trillion-trillions of atoms is dramatic. Thus, is a SOLDIER and his superhuman physiology born."

Shizune raised the joined halves of the Akatsuki in both hands.

"And just like our friends in SOLDIER," Shizune explained, "the Akatsuki is born of the same functional process. However, unlike SOLDIERs, the atomic structure of the Akatsuki is comprised wholly of negatively-charged anti-mako. And so, when we suddenly and violently 'introduce' it into the body of a SOLDIER…"

Shizune split the two halves of the Akatsuki in a dramatic gesture, and despite the corrosion on the blade, the two halves slightly contacting each other during the demonstration sounded a soft but lingering clang which eerily hung in the air.

"Bang!" Shizune exclaimed. "An uncontrolled chain reaction wherein mako and anti-mako eliminate each other in a catastrophic release of energy. The anti-mako of the Akatsuki is much more densely-packed and atomically-stable than the positively-charged, artificially-infused mako of the SOLDIER's body, which is why the blade itself is not destroyed in the process. It simply 'wins the power struggle', so to speak."

Riwin stared wide-eyed at the old blade.

"What...the...fuck," Riwin said slowly. "You mean to tell me that the Akatsuki is an anti-SOLDIER weapon?"

Shizune placed the two pieces of the Akatsuki gently on the table and leaned back slowly, careful not to jostle her broken ribs any more than necessary.

"Functionally," Shizune said, "that's precisely what it is. Though whether it was created specifically to combat SOLDIER in particular, I cannot say."

"Why did the blade blow up the one SOLDIER but not the other?"

"I can't say for sure," Shizune said, "but I think it's a problem of mass-the blade in its whole, unbroken form had sufficient mass to trigger the cascading chain reaction to the point of explosive detonation, whereas the half blade shard only succeeded in causing some kind of catastrophic damage and/or shock to the SOLDIER's system. That's just a guess, of course. I can't be certain until I do more tests."

"Well," Riwin said, now picking up one of the Akatsuki shards and turning it over in his hand, inspecting it with a newfound reverence. "It certainly works. But we can't have a full-length melee weapon that explodes _that_ violently every single time we slice into a SOLDIER."

"No," Shizune conceded. "That simply will not do. Conceptually, this weapon is of unparalleled potency, but it's just a prototype. The perfected version of this weapon would, theoretically, slay SOLDIERs in the same fundamental manner-by burning their bodies from the inside-out-but in a much more controlled chain reaction that wouldn't result in an explosion…"

Riwin, who had been staring at the Akatsuki, now shot his eyes to Shizune as he heard the musings of the familiar tinkerer he had known from years ago.

"You almost sound like you might have an idea about how to fix this problem."

"That is highly likely," Shizune said.

* * *

 **SHINRA TOWER, 66TH FLOOR**

 **MIDGAR**

 **DISC 03 - SEPTEMBER 2015**

"This incident is peculiar in all the wrong ways," Kezu said, phone raised to his ear.

He sat at his desk in his darkened office, reclining in his seat, but far from relaxed.

"A recommendation?" he said, rapping his fingers in a grim rhythm on the surface of the desk, eyes aimed at the ceiling as he thought for a moment. "FR-221 'Wizard'. Ramirez' unit. They are the best group of bloodhounds we have."

The rough-hewn ice cubes in Kezu's whiskey dislodged suddenly as they melted, sending a ring of glass tones through Kezu's office. He raised an eyebrow as he heard the voice on the other end.

"You want to mobilize 'Avalon' instead? Very well, V3-408 it is."

With that, Kezu ended the call. He sat up in his seat and keyed the rapid start-up sequence on his terminal. When presented with the password prompt, Kezu typed his 42-digit passcode with unnatural haste. A mere moment later, a video window opened which read "SOUND ONLY."

"Yes?" an even-tempered voice responded, glacially cool.

"I'm sorry to bother you on your vacation," Kezu said insincerely.

"What's the situation?"

"A loose end, perhaps."

"I don't deal in the trade of ambiguities, Kezu."

"Someone gravely wounded a 2nd Class and outright killed a 3rd Class in Rocket Town."

A beat of silence.

"I told you it might come to this," said the voice on the other end. Though the phrase was one of blame, the intonation was completely devoid of emotion.

"Just muster your team, Tseng. Make for Rocket Town. I'll send the briefing later," Kezu said, masking his irritation.

"Consider it done."


	7. File 06 - Legion

**SHINRA TOWER**

 **BIOHAZARD QUARANTINE LAB**

 **DISC 03 - SEPTEMBER 2015**

Brian had thought that a job with the Shinra Science Department would have been far more fascinating than the actual job turned out to be, and for every day since he had started roughly a year ago, he cursed both the boredom of the job and the hasty, impulsive nature that had brought him here.

That pitiful self-cursing had come to an abrupt end a mere three days prior, when they had brought in that _thing_ and he had been assigned to monitor it.

It was just him and it, alone in the Biohazard Quarantine Lab.

In his stronger, perhaps more curious moments, he had glanced at it.

This was just such an occasion.

To Brian, it looked like the upper half of a rotting human female carcass suspended in a transparent, armor-plex glass cylinder filled with viscous, colorless synthetic amniotic fluid. The thing was hooked up to various intravenous sensors and covered in come kind of deterioration trauma, like a necrotic plague-several of the internal organs in the upper torso were actually exposed. Somehow, this thing was still alive-though from what he had witnessed in his time in the SSD, "alive" was a term with flexible parameters. Yet despite the "life" that the equipment could detect in this specimen-however erratic-it did not appear to be conscious or sentient. And so, Brian's given task was a simple, unambiguous one-inform management if the thing "woke up," though the thought of it opening its squamous, mucus-coated eyes made him shiver with revulsion.

 _At least it's unconscious,_ he thought.

However, it was precisely at that moment that his phenomenal luck decided to exert itself once more.

The thing _twitched._

Brian jumped.

At the same time, a quiet, but angry set of digital tones sounded from Brian's biomedical monitoring terminal.

Though he hated the idea of turning his back on the thing, he rushed back to his terminal on the other end of the small lab and began to key up the coms. However, before he actually finished unlocking his encrypted coms terminal, the door to the lab slid open and a man with a lab coat stepped in. He had long, stringy hair the color of crude oil, a pair of rounded spectacles, and hollow cheeks that, despite lending him the aspect of a husk inhabited by a demon, bore a smile as crooked as his posture.

"That will be all," the man said, his voice dry like a withered cactus. "Leave us."

"Yes, Professor Hojo," Brian said as he gathered up his lunch box and left hastily. He had never been happier to leave a room in his life.

As the doors slid closed, Hojo approached the thing in the tube. He pressed his thumb to a biometric scanner beside the tank and keyed an activation switch.

"Captain Rosewater, can you hear me?"

The thing that had once been SOLDIER 2nd Class Lina Rosewater twitched again violently. It opened its mouth, but the amniotic fluid permitted no sound. The only thing that showed was her mouth twisted in a fang-baring scream of silence.

Hojo pressed the coms button again.

"You'll have to calm down, otherwise you'll lapse back into unconsciousness again."

Lina, or what was left of her, began to thrash violently in the amniotic tank. Some of the sensor wires were yanked off by the sudden movement, causing the biomonitor in the back of the room to sound constant terminal tones. Hojo ignored the monitor and continued to stare at Lina, the crooked smile having never left his face.

"As you wish," he said, "but you should at least listen to what I have to say."

Hojo propped his glasses up.

"We cannot stop the degeneration of your cells," Hojo said.

He gestured to the tank with both of his hands.

"This is the extent of what we can do to preserve what's left of your physical body. Sad, indeed. I had such high hopes for you, in particular, Captain Rosewater. You see, somehow, your unbridled hatred for everything and everyone in this world seemed to lend your Mako-enhancement unexpected potency. I had also hoped to study that more once you reached 1st Class, but, well…"

Lina continued to thrash with more unnatural vigor. The viscous fluid in her tank began to churn and slosh about with her movements.

"You see, I can't give you back your old body," Hojo said, each word somehow becoming increasingly more anxious. "But, I can give you a new body."

Lina stopped thrashing to glare venomously at Hojo.

"There," Hojo said with sinister relish, "I knew you'd be interested. There is just one catch-you may not enjoy the process. But, I can promise you that if you survive the procedure, you'll be on-par with a 1st Class. I've never done this before. Who knows-maybe you'll be stronger than Sephiroth…"

The two monsters regarded each other. The solid death tone of the biomonitor seemed to mock the moment with its false proclamation of death.

"You'll have the chance to punish the one who did this to you. That's something you want, correct?"

Lina nodded, her grin a twisted grimace of teeth-clenching pain and rage.

* * *

 **MAXIMUM SECURITY BRIG, COMMAND PLATFORM**

 **UNITED PEOPLES OF FORT CONDOR**

 **DISC 03 - OCTOBER 2015**

The cell was large enough to accommodate at least four prisoners, but there was only a single, emaciated occupant. A skeleton dressed in skin and sinew, hung by his hands from tempered steel shackles chained to an unpainted concrete wall of tombstone grey. The wall directly behind was stained slick from layers of dried sweat and blood, lending an unclean sheen to the wall, a mockery of a holy aura.

The prisoner was shirtless. His beard and hair, matted with filth and reaching down to the prisoner's midriff, was the dirty brown-black of the soil from the bottom of a grave. The air of the cell was stagnant, but punctuated with the dull clanking sounds of industrial machinery churning from somewhere far away. In the faded, yellow light that shone from the single dirty bulb in the center of the ceiling, the prisoner was corpse-still.

Until the lock on the door clanged suddenly, and the body twitched violently in surprise.

The heavy, ovular orange-steel porthole swung open on whining hinges, and two UPFC soldiers in full security gear entered the cell. Both of the guards were heavily armored in combat webbing, full-face balaclavas, and the dull silver plating that was particular to UPFC heavy infantry. The first guard stepped into the cell silently and with a cat's grace. She was small and lithe, especially when compared to the guard who followed behind her who had to duck under the porthole clearance before stepping into the cell, proper.

The shorter, female guard advanced steadily towards the prisoner while the taller guard closed and locked the door behind them. Both guards came to stand directly in front of the prisoner and seemed to regard him with a peculiar kind of silent curiosity.

"Is that him?" the taller guard whispered.

The shorter guard did not answer, but instead knelt beside the prisoner to get a closer look at his face. She put two fingers to the prisoner's neck, apparently checking his vitals.

"What the hell did they do to him?" the taller guard whispered again, this time the words sounding more choked.

"Shut up," the shorter guard hissed, her head tilted downward, eyes closed. "Get it together."

" _Get it together?_ Would you be so composed if you found _me_ like that?"

"I'd stow the shock for later. Like the Boss taught us to."

The taller guard seemed to seethe for a moment before setting his duty bag down and unpacking a mobile stretcher. The shorter guard opened a medical pouch on the front of her combat webbing and fished out a syringe.

"He's completely unresponsive. I'm going to bring him to," she said as she swabbed the prisoner's left arm and began injecting the stimulant.

The taller guard finished setting up the stretcher. "He looks so far gone. I don't even recognize him."

The prisoner began to groan, and the shorter guard recoiled at the crypt-stench of the prisoner's breath.

"Soldier," the shorter guard said in a voice rich with military command, "name and rank."

The prisoner groaned again, this time more agitated.

The shorter guard slapped the prisoner in the face.

"NAME AND RANK. NOW."

The prisoner raised his head a fraction of an inch. His eyes flickered open violently and locked on to the shorter guard's gaze.

"...V...Valerick…"

The taller guard could no longer contain himself. He tore off his balaclava and knelt down in front of Valerick, cupping his face in his two gloved hands.

"Valerick," Riwin said hesitantly, "It's me, the arse-ling, remember? It's me, Riwin!"

Shizune rolled her eyes visibly and also removed her balaclava.

Valerick looked at both Riwin and Shizune with blank stares of unrecognition, then he seemed to realize his surroundings. His eyes darted wildly, fixing on random points around the cell, finally settling to some point in the back of the cell. His face twisted in a weary grimace of hate. "Valerick…" he hissed as he thrashed against the chains.

Shizune shook her head. "He's still in some form of deep shock. He's unintelligible."

"What, he can only say his name?"

"That is highly likely. Whatever happened to him in here seems to have broken his mind."

" _That's_ not likely at all," Riwin spat. "That's fucking impossible."

Riwin noticed that Valerick seemed to be staring intently at some point behind them.

"Valerick…" he seethed again in a paper thin whisper.

"We have to get him out of here," Shizune said, "Come on, help me get-"

Riwin sensed the displacement of air first.

He immediately feinted right, springing as far as he could. As he did so, Riwin intentionally collided hard with Shizune and knocked her on the ground with such force that she began skidding on the dusty floor of the cell.

Riwin's lightning reflexes paid off-where he and Shizune were situated just a moment ago, there was now a lone warrior, fist half-embedded in the wall behind the prisoner. He was a grizzled-looking soldier with a scruffy beard, an eyepatch over his right eye, a loose ponytail, and lightweight combat gear. He was incredibly fast, and the blow would have surely injured Riwin if it had landed. However, as was his speciality, Riwin was suddenly absent where danger would have surely ended him.

Valerick began thrashing harder against his chain restraints. Despite his emaciated state, he bellowed hoarsely, the sound a perfect blend of fury and horror, as the figure now standing before them recovered from his missed lunge attack and adopted an aggressor's stance. He turned to Riwin and Shizune, pure menace glinting in his one visible eye.

Riwin responded immediately by adopting his favored mobile defensive stance as Shizune recovered from the saving tackle and now regarded their enemy from a defensive crouch.

"You're not any of mine," the one-eyed man said with a voice like gravel under tank treads.

Riwin donned a jackal's smile. "And you're no ordinary warrior to be able to sneak up on us like that."

"High Marshall Griggs," Shizune said like an indictment.

Griggs snorted, not once taking his eye off Riwin. "You two got in here, I'll give you that," Griggs said evenly.

Riwin had meant to respond, but in the next instant, Griggs had launched at them both, somehow managing to close the distance between them faster than either of them had anticipated. Shizune reacted first, drawing a UPFC standard-issue M1911 and snapping off three rounds. To her surprise, the first two rounds somehow missed, but the last one slammed home directly into Griggs' left shoulder.

Somehow, in spite of this, Griggs was still lunging at them at full force.

Shizune dove out of the way to the rear of the cell to reposition herself for another pistol volley, but in the next fraction of an instant, Griggs and Riwin met in a tempest of melee combat.

As far as anyone in the Turks had known, Riwin Koucha was one of the fastest beings on the planet-an expert at defensive and evasive melee combat. Actually landing a blow on him was an achievement worthy of merit. Fist fights with Riwin usually lasted a matter of seconds at most, as Riwin would simply evade hits until finding the right opening, at which time he would simply strike his foe down. In Shizune's own experience with the Ace Turk, she had only seen Riwin fight longer than a few minutes on a small handful of occasions, and that was mostly because Riwin was simply toying with his opponents. On one such occasion, Shizune simply headshot the target as a matter of expediency, much to Riwin's chagrin.

Shizune had intended to do the same thing in this situation. Even when she was an Alpha MP, Shizune never had any trouble aiming into melee combat. After rising to full Turk status, Shizune became R0-414's best pistoleer and marksman. Targets now moved in slow motion to her. However, when she tried to zero her sights onto her target this time, she saw something wholly unnatural-Griggs was attacking at superhuman speeds, comparable to Riwin's evasion.

For the next few moments, Shizune tried to refocus. All the while, Valerick was screaming his own name directly at Griggs as if to curse him, stringy spittle flying and getting caught in his beard. She tried to align and lock her gunsights onto Griggs, but she couldn't-he was simply moving too fast. To compound things, it seemed that they had thoroughly underestimated the old veteran-every effort he exerted had violent finesse-a clarity of aggressive purpose. Every movement was not simply a shifting of weight to counterbalance or the heaving of exertion-every single movement _was_ an attack, just as much as every movement Riwin made was, in and of itself, a defense.

She had seen this fight before.

With her gun still trained on the fight, she spared another quick, yet discerning glance at the prisoner chained against the wall. His eyes were wide-livid and filled with absolute hatred-and aimed directly at the man fighting Riwin.

He was screaming his voice raw with the same name, over and over again- _Valerick._

They were saving the wrong prisoner.

They were fighting the wrong man.

" _We're R0-414!_ " Shizune yelled at the top of her lungs. " _Evan Oris' unit!_ "

Griggs faltered for a split second, giving Riwin the opening he needed.

Riwin knifed his fingers into the side of the man's neck, causing him to crumble to a heap on the ground, unconscious.

He was about to land a killing strike when Shizune reached out as fast as she could and grabbed his wrist hard.

"WAIT!" she hissed, motioning to Griggs. " _That's_ Valerick!"

Riwin looked as though he had been slapped.

Shizune pointed at the prisoner. " _That's_ Griggs, chained up and kept in the dark! Valerick did this! He assumed Griggs' identity as cover! Couldn't you sense anything specifically familiar in that fight?"

Riwin seemed to relax. He and Shizune stared down at the man lying sprawled upon the ground.

"He's an Ace-Turk-level fighter," Shizune said. "A striker like no other. He snuck up on _us_ , Riwin. Who besides the Boss can do that?"

A look of genuine recognition crossed Riwin's face

He smiled.

"Hmph," Riwin scoffed. "Even now, he's still schooling me on the shell game."

* * *

 **MAXIMUM SECURITY BRIG, COMMAND PLATFORM**

 **UNITED PEOPLES OF FORT CONDOR**

 **DISC 03 - JUNE 2011**

High Marshall Ernest Franklin Griggs regarded the new acquisition with a mix of curiosity and trepidation, though his men would never know that he experienced any of the latter.

The man chained up in front of him was an anomaly-a misnomer in all the ways that were wrong. Griggs had recognized this odd pattern of unknowns, and had come down to the brig to survey the prisoner personally. As was his custom, Griggs was flanked on either side by his personal honor guard. They were armed to the teeth and bedecked in the heavy infantry plating of the UPFC, and they never left his side.

And this was precisely why they were having trouble immediately following through on his current orders.

"Wait outside," Griggs said a second time.

The guards hesitated awkwardly again.

"Sir?" asked the guard closest to Griggs.

"I won't be issuing the order a third time," Griggs said, this time with some edge to it.

The honor guard filed out of the cell and closed the door behind them.

Then the prisoner chuckled. It was the low and bassy, and it echoed about the tiny metal cell like a bad omen.

The prisoner was dishevelled and looked to have been homeless for some months. He stank richly of the sea. His skin looked like sun-baked leather, his black-brown hair was matted with filth, but his violet eyes shown with an intelligence that betrayed the man's true power.

Griggs clenched his jaw.

"It's nice to be out of the sun for a change," the prisoner said.

"You showed up this morning, claiming to be 'Rufus Shinra'," Griggs began, "And then you proceeded to resist interrogation and arrest. Your biometric data does not register with any known citizen of Midgar or Junon, and yet most of the names you had mumbled in your stupor as you were brought to this cell have registered various hits in our own database. One in particular-'Nicodemus'."

The prisoner raised an eyebrow. "So? What about him?"

Griggs knelt closer to the prisoner, seeming to want to look him directly in the face.

"It is you, isn't it?" Griggs said with the growl of a predator standing above wounded prey.

"Yup."

Griggs seemed genuinely surprised by the nonchalant admission.

"I've come across people like you in the past. When I was still in the Aeronavy High Command at Junon forward base. You people started to pop up a little after the war. I had always been suspicious of whenever the company had attached civilians to my units. I did some digging of my own. I didn't particularly like that the company created and made use of people like you."

"People like me?" the prisoner asked, apparently feigning ignorance.

"Turks," Griggs said like a curse. "There is no honor in what you do or how you go about doing it."

The prisoner laughed. "You think _I'm_ a 'Turk'?" he asked, making quotation mark fingers as he said it. "You know those aren't real, righ-"

Griggs headbutt the prisoner solidly in the forehead, causing the both of them to bleed.

"Do you know how the Shinra Special Forces came to be?" Griggs asked, though it was apparent to the prisoner that Griggs was not expecting an answer. "The SSF was my counter-proposal to the Turks. The President wanted a stronger arm of Shinra. Heidegger had put forward his idea of a clandestine spy unit because he reeks of cowardice. I argued that we could accomplish the same goals openly, with a specialized tactical combat unit. As a proof of concept, I founded and trained the first SSF units, personally. The Turks and the SSF are twin siblings who better each other in their attempts to slay each other. You can start being honest with me now, Mr. Goodliffe."

For the first time since they had started talking, Valerick smiled genuinely. The blood from his forehead laceration had dripped steadily down his chin and onto the floor.

"You know my true name," Valerick said. "That means you have power over me."

"I have power over you because you are a broken blade whose aim faltered and was not true. And now this broken blade has fallen into my possession as a part of my collection," Griggs said as he walked back towards the cell door. "Our day here is concluded, Mr. Goodliffe, but we will talk again in time."

Griggs gave two solid knocks on the tempered steel door, but the knocks made no sound.

"We're not finished yet," Valerick said clearly.

Griggs turned around to see that Valerick had now somehow freed himself from his restraints and was now standing at his full height. To Grigg's utter shock, he saw himself still standing before Valerick.

He hadn't moved to the door at all.

The walls of the cell began to glow a sickly dark purple, and wisps of materia espers were emanating from a glowing violet spot on Valerick's abdomen.

"Kneel," Valerick said in a voice that was now an entire octave lower than his normal voice.

Despite his resistance, Griggs felt an undeniable urge to comply. The more he willed himself against the urge, the more the pain built up within his body.

" _KNEEL!_ "

The voice was Valerick's, but somehow, Griggs was also hearing the command in his head. The pain flared in an instant. It was like white hot needles were forcing themselves out of the pupils of his eyes. Griggs fell hard on his knees to the floor before Valerick, whose violet eyes were now glowing ephemerally.

Valerick stepped to the side, and through eyes creased with pain, Griggs saw that Valerick's eyes were leaving after-image trails, as if he had stared at the sun for too long. Griggs glanced briefly ahead of him, and another Valerick was still chained to the wall, arms splayed out.

One Valerick was still a prisoner. The other stood to the side, glaring down at Griggs. Both had the same demonic glow emanating from their eyes and stomachs.

"What...is...this...sorcery…" Griggs managed to grunt out. The pain was so intense that he was now perpetually clenching his jaw and salivating and sweating wildly.

The two Valericks spoke as one, though each now had a different tone which was discordant with respect to the other.

" _THIS SACRIFICE CAN BE MADE ONLY ONCE._ "

The walls of the cell were now shifting planes of etheric energy, blindingly bright yet somehow freezingly cold.

The Valerick standing above Griggs addressed the Valerick against the wall. He spoke in a voice like the world's end. " _You do not possess enough life force to keep me bound to your service. After this final act, I will be freed from our covenant._ "

The Valerick in chains spoke in a normal voice. "I understand the terms, and I accept."

Both the Valericks nodded in unison to each other, then turned their etheric gazes upon Griggs. The pain in Griggs' skull intensified to the point where he wished for his skull to explode, simply to release the pain. His mouth opened wider than he knew it could, yet no scream came-only the rictus pain of muscles locking his jaw bone into place.

The demons spoke in unison once more.

" _THEN LET THE RITUAL COMMENCE!_ "

* * *

When Griggs came to, he immediately felt pain in his wrists and throughout both his biceps and shoulders. Vision came slowly to the old veteran, but in moments he was able to blink away the fogginess. What he saw before him made no sense at all, but he understood it all the same.

Griggs saw himself standing before him, looking at him with a devil's grin.

"I know your true name," the Griggs-thing had said, "that means I have power over you."

He then realized that he was chained to the wall of the cell, shirtless, and covered in filth. He railed against the chains and the feeling was unusual- _foreign_ -as if the body he thrashed with was not his own. He rubbed his fingers together and flexed his toes.

Everything felt _incorrect._

He also noticed that despite the Griggs-thing's grin, the entity standing before him also seemed to be flexing his fingers and looking at the clothes he was wearing as if he didn't know he'd put them on. He looked as though he was trying his body out for the first time, stretching his arms out and waving them in circles. The Griggs-thing put a hand to his eyepatch, then slipped two fingers underneath it to feel the knots of scar tissue where an eye had once been.

The Griggs-thing chuckled genuine amusement.

"It seems fitting," it said, "that the price of such an exchange would be an eye. How poetic."

The voice that issued from the Griggs-thing was Griggs' own voice, but the voice that Griggs himself heard in his mind was that of Valerick Goodliffe.

Griggs began screaming and thrashing against the chain restraints.

"VALERICK!" Griggs screamed in his madness and confinement.

"Yes," the Valerick-Griggs-thing said, "that is _your_ true name now. Have a care with it, or you'll wear it out."

And with that, the Valerick-Griggs-thing proceeded to the cell door and knocked twice, just as Griggs had when he had attempted to leave. The viewing portal slid open with the sound of metal grinding on metal.

"I'm done with the prisoner," Valerick said.

" _VALERICK!_ " Griggs screamed from the wall.

As the door locked closed behind him, locking out the sound of Griggs' screaming, the senior guard spoke.

"I'm sorry about earlier, sir. It won't happen again."

"I know, son," Valerick said in Griggs' voice.

"He's insane, I knew it," said another of the balacalva'd honor guards.

"Yes, unfortunately he is," Valerick said. "But he remains extremely dangerous. None of our staff or assets are to interact verbally with this prisoner at all. I will handle all further interrogations of this prisoner myself. Classification Level Zero."

The honor guards nodded their understanding in unison. As the entourage walked steadily away from the cell, the sound of Griggs' screaming, though thoroughly muffled by the cell, could still be heard lightly resonating through the concrete-steel wall, like the memory of a ghost.

* * *

 **HIGH MARSHALL GRIGGS' OFFICE**

 **UNITED PEOPLES OF FORT CONDOR**

 **DISC 03 - OCTOBER 2015**

"Plastic surgery?" Shizune said, still marveling at Valerick's appearance as Griggs.

Valerick nodded, his visible eye closed in thought. "Yes. And thankfully, so far, no one has suspected anything."

The three former Turks sat in High Marshall Griggs' main office, though for all intents and purposes, this room had been the place from which Valerick Goodliffe had commanded and further developed the UPFC for the last four years. Valerick was seated in a high-backed cushioned leather chair behind a large, elaborately-engraved wooden desk, while Shizune and Riwin sat opposite him in the guest chairs. Not long after their mistaken fight had taken place, Valerick came to of his own accord, and upon actually recognizing Riwin and Shizune, the three members of R0-414 had returned to the office together, their covers still intact.

However, there was an undeniable tension in the air, as none of them had really known how to act in each other's presence any longer. To help diffuse the situation, Riwin tried to tell more jokes than usual, and Valerick poured everyone tea-a ritual he had to acquire from his cover identity's inventory of visible habits. Shizune sat silent and irritated at her own incomprehension of both Riwin's jokes and Valerick's uncanny appearance.

Now, the three Turks were sitting in an office in the most securely guarded place in the Eastern Continent-save for Shinra Tower-completely safe for the time being, and yet none of them knew what to do besides drink tea and make small talk.

"I'm sorry," Riwin said, breaking the silence, "but can I just say that it's really weird and a little bit creepy that you look the way you do? I mean, yes, we can take disguises to the extreme, but wow, you're like, _him_."

"Midgar has the best surgeons, because they are all owned by Shinra," Shizune said. "We have all seen what the best in facial reconstruction looks like, but this… is another level."

"Midgar has a lot, that's not false," Valerick replied, "but they don't have everything. I, myself, was surprised to find certain unique offerings in the UPFC, and this is one of them," Valerick concluded, gesturing to his face and body.

"How did you do it?" Riwin asked.

"I got arrested on purpose," Valerick began. "I played the part of a high-value target, thereby ensuring that I would meet Griggs somewhere. As luck or fate would have it, Griggs decided for some reason to keep his honor guard outside the cell. This took care of a major obstacle. From there, when Griggs' guard was down, I freed myself, switched outfits and positions, then thoroughly beat myself up. After the guards happened upon the scene, the illusion was complete-they conducted me to Grigg's private sick bay, where I made arrangements with Nicodemus' underworld contacts in the UPFC, and my newly-acquired honor guards, who all love me like a father, proceeded to beat Griggs to an inch of his life. Since then, I have ordered 'Valerick' off limits to all save for myself."

Shizune and Riwin sat silently, listening to Valerick's tale. The only other sounds in the room were the soft ticking of the grandfather clock by the opposite wall, and the sounds of porcelain tea cups meeting platters as Riwin and Shizune sipped their tea.

"So, you've been Griggs for how long now?" Riwin asked.

"Four years," Valerick said, glancing at the grandfather clock, then around the room at various things.

"You've been in charge of a mercenary kingdom for the last four years," Shizune said, though it seemed she was simply processing the implication as opposed to actually talking to anyone else in the room.

"Well, shit," Riwin said, "I would expect nothing less of sempai! Hey-Shizune had her own empire in Wutai, too! Come on, girl, tell him about ' _Wakka-Wakka-Jakoo_ '."

Shizune had her eyes closed and the tea cup raised to her lips, tilted up to drink just as Riwin was had said that. Her eyes opened in narrow slits and she shot Riwin the homicidal side-eye of doom.

"Or not," Riwin said meekly.

" _Wa. Kei. Sei. Jaku_ ," Shizune said slowly, deliberately.

Valerick raised an eyebrow. "Something to do with tea?"

"That is highly likely," Shizune said, continuing to send curses to Riwin.

Riwin's eyes were wide. "How in the crap did you figure that out?"

" _Wakeiseijaku_ -literally, 'harmony', 'respect', 'purity', and 'tranquility'," Valerick explained expertly. "It's an ancient phrase associated exclusively with traditional Wutaian tea ceremonies."

"Precisely," Shizune said, smirking at Riwin.

Riwin threw his hands up in resignation.

"Well, I can't be Wutaiaphiles like you two even if I tried."

"Valerick is from Junon, and you're half-Wutaian," Shizune countered. "What's your excuse?"

"Firstly," Riwin started, counting out the reasons on his fingers, "I'm not a weeaboo. Secondly, you're like, 100% Wutaian, so..."

"That's enough," Valerick said, raising a hand to halt the conversation. "For as nostalgic as it is for me to watch you pups nip at each other's heels like in the old days, let's not go there. We have more important matters to discuss."

Shizune and Riwin immediately focused, the rhythm of Turk command an easy routine to fall back into.

Valerick produced Griggs' behemoth bone pipe and began to prepare it with tobacco as he spoke. "As I had mentioned prior, I was on patrol on the plate when _Zero Protocol_ went into effect. I was able to make my way to the Northern Continent with relatively little incident, but I had to neutralize a contingent of MPs and their commanding 1st Class SOLDIER as well.

Both Shizune and Riwin stared at Valerick, eyes wide from the news.

"A 1st Class?" Riwin asked.

"Until now," Shizune said, "the only one of us who has ever managed to kill a 1st Class on their own was the Boss."

Valerick nodded in acknowledgment of that fact, but it was an unusually solemn gesture. A pregnant silence followed.

"Who did you take out?" Riwin asked.

* * *

 **NORTHERN CONTINENT**

 **150 KILOMETERS NORTH OF BONE VILLAGE**

 **DISC 03 - 22 DAYS AFTER ZERO PROTOCOL**

The SOLDIER dropped.

First to one knee, then the other, then face down.

He was dead.

Most of the MPs under the command of the SOLDIER were dead.

Those MPs in the camp who remained were in various states of succumbing to the poison that Valerick had laced their meals with. Many were in delirious states, lying in the snow or in their tents. A chorus of pained groans, growls, and spittle-filled noises echoed at intervals through the camp. The sergeant who led the camp was screaming furiously into his Coms unit.

The sergeant's mad barking halted abruptly in a gurgling smack, silenced by Valerick's sidearm. He then shot the radio for good measure. Back up would be on the way, but based on the geography and logistics of their position, Valerick knew it would take at least an hour.

Valerick then turned his attention back to the corpse of the SOLDIER. He flopped the body onto its back and fished the SOLDIER's own combat knife out of its leather holster on the front harness. He held the curved knife up to his eye level and inspected it with a detached look on his face. The blade itself was curved forward with serrations running along its inner edge. It was noticeably larger than a standard combat knife, but smaller than a proper machete. The amber light from the campfire glinted off its edges, and Valerick caught the reflection of his violet eyes in the mirror-sheen'd flat of the blade.

 _You are the hammer…_

He winced, averting his eyes away from the blade, trying to silence the voice in his head that seemed to resurface every time he remembered who he was.

 _You are my unbroken blades…_

The voice seemed to echo with the authority Valerick had come to trust in. Its familiar, reassuring feeling was a knife in his mind. Valerick dropped the combat knife, placing the flats of his palms against his temples. As the voice rose in cadence and clarity, so too did his vice grip on his own head.

The voice spoke again, echoing from everywhere all at once, and most evidently from the body of the dead SOLDIER.

 _You are the fear of death inherent-_

Valerick roared into the night, the sound low and forlorn, like an ancient beast awakening against its will. His breath misted heavily as he emptied his lungs of every last bit of the cold, Northern air to expel the demon of guilt he had nurtured since Midgar.

Valerick bent down at the waist, doubled-over as his diaphragm cramped.

He snatched the combat knife from where it had planted itself in the soft earth.

He would silence the voice.

Valerick grabbed the handle of the knife and went to work beheading the SOLDIER. As he finished his final, sawing cuts across the epoxy-like cartilage between the SOLDIER's neck vertebrae, he grabbed the purple ornamental plume that jutted from the top of the SOLDIER's helm and with a grunt of effort, he gave one solid jerk, pulling the head away from the neck. As he raised the helm to his eye level, the head came loose of the helmet straps. It landed face up in the soft earth, staring up at Valerick with a vacant expression of shock somehow still drawn upon it.

* * *

 **HIGH MARSHALL GRIGGS' OFFICE**

 **UNITED PEOPLES OF FORT CONDOR**

 **DISC 03 - OCTOBER 2015**

"Miyamoto," Valerick said. "I didn't know it was him until after the battle had ended."

"Miyamoto made 1st?" Shizune asked with a snort. The thought made her want to vomit into her teacup.

"Yes, somehow. Miyamoto was a lackluster 2nd Class at best, and he fought like it when I took him down. We all knew he wasn't up for promotion to 1st-in fact, last I knew before our exile, was that none of the current 2nd Class roster was eligible for promotion to 1st," Valerick explained. "If anyone had been, the Boss and I would have been the first to know about it, outside SOLDIER. Therefore, he must have made 1st Class _after_ we were kicked out."

"So what," Riwin said, "he suddenly get serious or something?"

"Miyamoto? No, that can't be it," Shizune said. "More likely, his promotion to 1st Class was a reward for services rendered."

"Indeed," Valerick said, pipe smoke issuing from his mouth.

"For _Zero Protocol_?" Riwin asked, incredulous.

"I can't say for certain," Valerick said, "but probably."

Shizune's eyes narrowed.

"Intriguing," Shizune said, frowning behind her teacup. "Promotion to SOLDIER 1st Class requires the approval of a Turk commander."

"Assuming things still work the way they did when we were still there," Valerick added.

"Who would have approved such an asinine move?" Riwin asked.

"Well," Shizune said, "in the absence of the Boss, that could have been anyone at the rank of unit commander, really. It's all speculation at this point. Still…"

Riwin raised an eyebrow. "Why do you even care? You got some vendetta against Miyamoto or something?"

Shizune sipped her tea.

"Yes, I do," she said. "He shot my escape pod out of the sky. Technically, I owe him 12 pairs of broken ribs. But what concerns me now is that someone in _our_ former organization lauded him for this action."

Smoke curled slowly away from Valerick's nostrils as he readjusted himself in his chair.

"I think I know who it might have been," he said.

* * *

 **UNITED PEOPLES OF FORT CONDOR**

 **HIGH MARSHALL GRIGGS' OFFICE**

 **DISC 03 - AUGUST 2011**

"What are you doing here?" Valerick said with the kind of open contempt that he imagined Griggs might have for his impromptu guest. "I don't want to have anything more to do with you people."

Kezu Deprieve smiled, though the gesture was hollow.

"And yet, High Marshall Griggs, you parlay with our false informant 'Nicodemus'," Kezu said nonchalantly.

"That's prudence in action," Valerick countered. "Furthermore, that was to get a line in with Shinra, _not_ the Turks."

"The Turks _are_ Shinra, High Marshall."

"And yet, you're not. I know how the Turks work," Valerick said, a wisp of nostalgia and regret passing momentarily in his clouded mind.

At this, Kezu had to chuckle.

"I wish to propose a trade," Kezu said.

* * *

 **HIGH MARSHALL GRIGGS' OFFICE**

 **UNITED PEOPLES OF FORT CONDOR**

 **DISC 03 - OCTOBER 2015**

"Kezu?" Riwin asked, seemingly taken aback. "From Legal?"

"The very same," Valerick said. "He came here a few months after I assumed Griggs' identity."

"That doesn't make any sense," Shizune said. "He's not even a field agent."

"Correct," Valerick said.

Riwin shrugged. "OK, so he's out in the world now. When did he become a field agent?"

"Apparently," Valerick said, "not long after we fled."

The three exiles sat in silent thought for a few moments. Shizune frowned visibly.

"Kezu Deprieve… He's the one who was trying to hit on the Boss at the New Year's Eve party, right?" Shizune asked.

"Yes, he was trying to," Valerick confirmed. "Badly, I might add."

Riwin laughed heartily. "You make like you never tried to hit on her, yourself."

" _I did not!_ " Valerick and Shizune said at the same time.

Riwin's eyes went wide and he leaned back slowly in his seat.

"OK…" he said, eyeing Shizune cautiously. "I was talking to Va-."

"I know that!" Shizune said, her face flush. "I was just…"

"Just what?" Riwin asked.

" _URUSAI!_ " Shizune snapped in Wutaian.

"Alright, whatever," Valerick said, rolling his eyes. "So as I was saying, Kezu Deprieve showed up to ask for the UPFC's help in finding 'escaped fugitives'."

Valerick chuckled.

"When he showed me the personnel files of the 'fugitives' he was after, I almost smiled and blew my cover," Valerick said with a grin. "I knew then-you guys had made it. You guys were out there, somewhere, hiding just as well as I had managed to."

Riwin snorted. "Well, maybe not as well as _you_ did," he said, gesturing to the room.

Valerick took a cardkey out of his pocket and slid it into a port somewhere underneath his desk. A hidden panel opened, revealing a safe.

"As far as I can tell," Valerick said, as he spun the dial of the safe to unlock it, "Kezu didn't realize that I wasn't Griggs."

Valerick swung open the safe door and reached inside, producing three thin portfolios which he handed to Riwin.

"Furthermore," Valerick said, "according to these files, it seems that Midgar knows very little about us these days."

"These are the files that Kezu brought you?" Riwin asked.

"Indeed," Valerick said. "Now, why would a Turk lawyer be out in the field on a manhunt?"

"He's still a Turk," Shizune mused. "That counts for something."

"True," Valerick said, "but something is out of joint."

"Was he just the messenger maybe?" Riwin asked.

Valerick shook his head. "No. He carried himself as though he himself were in charge of getting us into custody. He parlayed with more authority than any Turk lawyer could have."

Shizune and Riwin were flipping through the folders rapidly, absorbing every detail as quickly as they could. They read and scanned at the same pace, trading folders at the same time, almost as if the action had been rehearsed. There were three file folders in total, each corresponding to each of the ex-Turks in that very room-there was a file for Shizune Mai, Valerick Goodliffe, and one for Riwin Koucha. Shizune and Riwin seemed to pick up on this at the same time, and she voiced the question that was on both of their minds.

"Where's the Boss' file?"

Valerick wrinkled his nose quickly, as if to ward off a fly that had landed on it.

"That's all I received from Kezu," he said.

Shizune raised an eyebrow, while Riwin, sensing the oddness of the reply, decided to divert the flow of conversation.

"They don't just want us 'back in custody'," Riwin said grimly. "They are trying to tie up loose ends."

Valerick nodded.

" _Theoretical,_ " Shizune said, "Kezu and Miyamoto gain mutual benefits which stem from getting rid of R0-414."

"Perhaps," Valerick said. "It's not hard to link the two in that way-If Miyamoto helps get rid of us in some way, Kezu might have a chance to ascend during the power vacuum. He rewards Miyamoto with a nomination to 1st Class."

"Some reward," Riwin scoffed. "Miyamoto's dead now."

"Indeed," Valerick said. "We needn't concern ourselves with him. Then again, not like we ever needed to, even in the old days."

Valerick and Riwin turned their heads at the sound of knuckles cracking.

"Though I hate to borrow a line from Rosewater," Shizune said, flexing her interlocked fingers. "Miyamoto was _my_ mark. But no matter now. Thank you, Valerick."

"You're of course, quite welcome."

"So easy to say 'please' and 'thank you' when it's your old butt-buddy Val, but with me, you know what it takes to get a 'thank you' out of the 'Crimson Lady'?" Riwin asked Valerick. "I have to save her from two rampaging SOLDIERs in Rocket Town."

"So," Valerick said thoughtfully, "That _was_ you two down in Rocket Town last month."

"You heard about that?" Shizune said like a child admitting wrongdoing.

"An Ace Turk is in charge of the UPFC now-our intel network has never been better," Valerick said. "That notwithstanding, you two still managed to make enough noise so that even without my official intel network, I would have heard about it. In fact," Valerick said, knocking ash out of his pipe and prepping some fresh tobacco, "I heard about the incident from the _Shin-koku_."

Shizune adopted a quizzical look, while Riwin remained grinning politely, but mostly blank-faced.

"The ousted Wutaian biker gang?" Shizune asked.

"Indeed," Valerick said. "They have always maintained a chapter here in Fort Condor. After it officially became the UPFC, Griggs was in the process of evicting them. After I assumed control, I decided to let them be. Now, after years of symbiosis, the _Shin-koku_ are my best source for recon and underground intel."

"Well," Riwin said, "I wouldn't trust them completely."

"I don't," Valerick said, "but go on."

"The _Shin-koku_ is how we found out about 'Prisoner V'," Shizune said. "It looks like they trade Intel in both directions."

Valerick chuckled, seemingly amused at this. "It figures."

A digital chime sounded from a device somewhere on the desk. Valerick pressed an intercom switch.

"This is Griggs."

The crisp voice of a young male operator, tinged hollow by standard vox quality, spoke aloud from a speaker on the desk intercom.

" _Sir, the officers' quarters you requested are ready for use now._ "

"Excellent," Valerick said. "Thank you, Corporal. And what of the Mechanical Forge, is that ready yet?"

Shizune's eyebrow twitched.

" _Negative sir, but the Engineering corps assures me that the Mechanical Forge will be nominal by 21-hundred hours._ "

"Copy," Valerick said, his eyes flicking briefly to Shizune, then back to the intercom. "Tell Quartermaster Norton that if he can half that estimate, his entire team can have two extra days of furlough in Mideel."

" _Wilco, Boss._ "

"Inform me directly as soon as the Forge is ready. Griggs out."

Valerick leaned back in the leather chair and noticed that Shizune looked like she was drooling.

"I am remiss," Valerick said to Shizune, "I meant to-"

" _You have a Mechanical Forge here?_ May I-"

"Yes, and yes," Valerick said, cutting her off.

The three Turks laughed together and shared a feeling which had been all but alien to them in the last five years of exile-belonging.

"It is as close to the old lab as I can provide here at the UPFC," Valerick added. "Of course, we don't posses the same computer tech that Shinra has, but what we lack in the digital, we make up for in the mechanical. You'll still be able to invent and forge weapons and devices there. As you also heard, I've had accommodations prepared for the both you, but I imagine that Shizune here will be living out of the Forge for the most part."

The intercom's digital chime sounded once again.

"Go for Griggs," Valerick responded.

" _It's Quartermaster Norton, sir,_ " said a voice worn gruff by the years, heavily accented in the manner of the Northern Continent. " _I've got a proposal for you-how about three days of furlough?_ "

"Don't push your luck, Quartermaster," Valerick admonished.

" _Aye-aye, Boss._ "

Riwin laughed. "So, they call you 'Boss', eh?"

 _The hammer and the anvil…_

Valerick seemed to be the only one in the room who could hear her.

He became unreadable in that moment.

"What of it?" Valerick said.

"What do you think _our_ Boss will say about that?" Riwin asked, still chuckling at the small irony.

 _...fear of death, inherent to every soul…_

The voices were fragments, dancing just at the edge of Valerick's hearing. The chittering of their accursed phrases began to steadily rise in a cacophony.

Valerick scowled.

"The hell kind of joke is that?" he spat.

Riwin and Shizune traded uncomfortable glances as Valerick continued to simmer like a volcano on the verge of eruption.

"Valerick?" Shizune asked.

 _...unbroken blades…_

The voice whisper-echoed in Valerick's mind with all the care and gentleness of a bullet to the head.

"What!?" Valerick snapped at Shizune. " _You_ of all people would let him get away with talking so nonchalantly about Evan?"

An uncomfortable silence followed, the moments metered out by the ticking of the clock on the wall.

"Valerick," Shizune began again, "what's the matter with you?"

Valerick clenched his jaw visibly, his eyes shifting to focus on some unremarkable spot on his desk. He seemed to be breathing harder.

The voices were a tempest now.

"So," Valerick finally said, "that's how the two of you honor the dead, huh?"

Riwin and Shizune looked perplexingly at each other, then back again to Valerick.

"What are you talking about?" Riwin asked,

Valerick's face twitched visibly.

"She's dead. _Evan Oris is dead._ "

The voices around Valerick stopped.

Shizune dropped her teacup on the floor. She put a hand up to her mouth, feeling suddenly, overwhelmingly sick.

"What!?" Irwin shouted. "That's fucking impossible!"

"She's dead, Riwin," Valerick said, his voice cracking in mid-statement.

Riwin began laughing incredulously, but the sound was hollow and mirthless.

Shizune swallowed hard, trying to regain her composure. It took every reserve of willpower she had as well as a few deep breaths to regain emotional control. She blinked hard.

"How?" Shizune said, her voice a cracked whisper, "When? Is that why her file's not here?"

 _How?_ Valerick thought to himself. In his mind's eye, a split-second flashback of the scene as he remembered it-blood everywhere, filling his nostrils with its iron stink. The memory was perfect, and it made him visibly flinch with its vividness.

"She didn't make it," Valerick said under his breath, through gritted teeth.

Through watery eyes, Shizune began wildly scanning the room as she tried look for something to destroy.

Riwin slumped back into his chair. The smile had gone from his face, and in that moment, he no longer wore any of the masks that he had crafted as a Turk. Valerick's revelation had burned them all away in a funeral pyre none of them could openly honor.

"You didn't answer her question," Riwin said blankly.

Valerick suddenly slammed his fist on the desk.

"Is this why you two have shown yourselves now?" Valerick yelled, spittle flying from his teeth. "You just decide to bring us all together to remind us all that Evan is dead? _Does this amuse you?_ Have you fallen so low as to play out mind games upon your own?"

"When?" Shizune managed between calming breaths.

"You think I'm _playing_?" Riwin asked, as though Valerick had stabbed him in the lung.

Valerick scowled. "It's what you do, Riwin-you jest. You prod, and poke, and jab until-"

" _WHEN?_ " Shizune said again, this time yelling at the both of them.

"What do yo mean, _when_?," Valerick asked incredulously. "She was killed a year before our exile from Midgar!"

Shizune blinked away tears.

"What?" Shizune asked.

"Yes," Valerick said, the anger bleeding away from him now.

"That cannot be right."

Riwin looked at Shizune. "What the hell is going on?"

"No, Valerick," Shizune said, barely keeping her anger in check, "The Boss was with _me_ in the HQ when it all went down."

The tempest of voices returned, assailing Valerick and making him wince in pain.

Riwin and Shizune saw this and exchanged concerned looks.

"What are you talking about?" Valerick said.

Riwin sat up straighter in his chair and looked directly at Valerick.

"She's right, Val. The Boss was in HQ with Shizune. _She's_ the one who ordered _Zero Protocol_..."

"Wait, what? No." Valerick said, seemingly also confused.

"Valerick," Shizune said, "Who is the only person who could have ordered _Zero Protocol_?"

Valerick's eyes shifted sharply to the left, as if he was staring at something else in the room with them.

Riwin and Shizune both followed his gaze to an old map of Gaia that was on the Eastern wall, but saw nothing of note. They turned back to their former XO.

"Val," Riwin said, "There's something wrong with you."

" _Theoretical_ ," Valerick said darkly, "the both of you are so blind in your loyalty, that you are both hopelessly deranged. You're both lost. It's-"

Shizune rocketed out of her chair and buried her right fist in Griggs' desk, cratering the wooden surface. In her left hand, she held out a USB flash drive, pointing it accusingly at Valerick.

" _PRACTICAL_ ," she scowled, "The Boss' biometric data has hits leading up to at least six months _after Zero Protocol!_ "

Valerick's single eye focused dubiously on the flash drive in Shizune's outstretched fist before locking gazes with her.

"You're mistaken," he said under his breath.

"Valerick," Shizune said as sternly as she could, "this is how we traced you to Fort Condor. Your biometric data, erased by _Zero Protocol_ , is saved on this drive. Riwin and I used the files to get a lead on you via the InfoNet in Rocket Town."

Valerick's gaze shifted momentarily to Riwin as if to confirm what Shizune was saying.

Riwin nodded in earnest.

"According to this data," Shizune continued, "the Boss survived _Zero Protocol_ by at least half a year. She has registered hits at GPS locations _outside of Midgar._ "

" _Where?_ " Valerick asked slowly and intently.

"That's just it," Riwin said, "since we escaped Rocket Town, we haven't had a chance to confirm the loc-"

Before either Shizune or Riwin could react, Valerick shot a hand out and snatched the flash drive from Shizune's hand, eliciting an uncharacteristic gasp of surprise from Shizune. In the next instant, Valerick had jammed the flash drive into his terminal. The tell-tale creak-snap of plastic breaking shot through the small office.

"Careful with that!" Shizune said, stepping around the desk to get closer to Valerick's terminal keyboard. "Move-I need to unlock it first."

Valerick gritted his teeth and complied, sliding his chair to the side and letting Shizune type her notoriously-long passcode. Riwin stood to join them on the other side of Valerick's desk. He found standing room just to the right of Valerick.

"Val," Riwin said, "what the hell is going on with you?"

Valerick sat silently, fingers steepled in front of his face as his singular eye was locked on the monitor in anticipation of what he would find out.

Riwin let out a ragged, exasperated breath, believing that Valerick was simply ignoring him.

"She warned us," Valerick suddenly said under his breath. "But she's… dead?"

"Evan is not fucking dead," Riwin said with a hint of finality to it.

The monitor began rapidly scrolling through a list of GPS coordinates that was several screens long, all beginning with the capital letter "V."

"Fort Condor," Valerick said, reading the coordinates and recognizing them as his movement patterns over the last several years.

"Bringing up the Boss' coordinates now," Shizune said.

Where Valerick's GPS hits had been voluminous, Evan Oris' list was scant by comparison, filling less than half a screen. There were at most two dozen hits beginning with the capital letter "E."

The three former Turks stared at the screen in silence for the next few moments.

"That doesn't make sense," Shizune said.

"Why?" Riwin asked, "where is that?"

Valerick narrowed his eye. Riwin and Shizune were standing close enough to Valerick to be able to hear his teeth grinding.

"It's in the middle of nowhere," Shizune explained, apparently baffled as well.

"What?" Riwin asked.

"That's the desert south of Gold Saucer," Valerick said.

"But," Shizune stammered, "the GPS can only register hits if she has used a biometric terminal of some kind."

"Then there must be some terminals out there in the desert," Riwin said.

Shizune flared her nostrils in irritation. "It always surprises me how dumb you can be sometimes."

"What?" Riwin said, "isn't that a logical conclusion? Isn't that just the Gold Saucer dumping grounds?"

"Firstly," Shizune said, "the coordinates are much further south than that-think, in the middle of nowhere-and secondly, the Gold Saucer jail doesn't have any biometric terminals. It's more likely that the coordinates are buggy."

Valerick stared hard at the screen a moment longer. His eye flicked back to the map of Gaia on the wall.

"No," he said. "Riwin is right."

"Huh?" Shizune and Riwin said at the same time.

"There is a hidden super-max facility at these coordinates," Valerick said, eye closed as he spoke. "It has no formal designation, but we called it _Limbo._ It's a Turk blacksite, completely off the books-a place where we store dangerous assets for interrogation, reprogramming, or summary execution. Only Turk unit commanders and their XOs have the security clearance to know about it."

Riwin put a hand on the desk to steady himself, and Shizune looked as though she had been punched in the gut.

"And the Boss' last hit was _here?_ " Riwin asked in disbelief.

"...four and a half years ago…" Shizune said under her breath.

* * *

 **TURK BLACKSITE 'LIMBO'**

 **55 KILOMETERS SOUTH OF GOLD SAUCER**

 **DISC 03 - 1735 DAYS AFTER ZERO PROTOCOL**

The Shinra Blackhawk chopper stood out like a carrion-feeding fly as it sped across the desert sky, stark matte grey-black armor against a sea of yellowed-bone-white sand dunes. The setting sun painted the entire vista in a dry hue of coppery light.

The chopper broke from its bee-line course to begin a circular holding pattern. The sands below the chopper were whipping up violently in the rotor wash. Just then, a cavernous, circular abyss irised open, swallowing entire swathes of desert sand. The angry red of landing lights blazed to life at the bottom of the pit that had formed, and the chopper pilot deftly maneuvered the chopper down into the landing pit. As soon as the chopper had cleared the aperture, it closed above the chopper with a suddenness that seemed unnecessarily dangerous.

The Blackhawk descended another 100 meters, bulkhead hatches slamming opened and closed at intervals to let the chopper through as it continued to make its descent into the pit. Finally, the last of the armored bulkheads slid apart to admit the transport chopper into a spacious and generously-equipped hangar bay. Five meters shy of completing its landing proper, the cargo doors of the starboard side of the Blackhawk slid open and a man with a black suit and side-parted platinum blonde hair jumped gracefully out of the passenger bay of the chopper and onto the landing pad beneath. The twin engines of the chopper whined in protest as the pilot struggled to make a last minute emergency maneuver to prevent the chopper from landing directly on top of his eager passenger.

As the chopper engines powered down, their machine noises gradually descending in tone, the blonde man strode purposefully toward a biometric handprint scanner at the far side of the hangar. He produced a cell phone from his inner jacket pocket and put it to his ear.

"I hope you have some good news," Kezu said into the phone in an even tone.

" _We have finished up in Rocket Town,_ " Tseng said. " _it seems that whoever attacked the SOLDIERs escaped by playing an expert-level shell game._ "

Kezu frowned as he walked.

"Go on," he said.

" _We are fairly certain that there were only two assailants, a male and a female._ "

"So, Shizune plus Riwin or Valerick."

" _Possibly,_ " Tseng said, " _but I can't be sure just yet_."

Kezu halted just before the security scanner.

"In your estimate, this was a Turk-level bait-and-switch egress?"

" _Yes._ "

"Then it's probably them."

" _Ex R0-414 members aren't the only ones that are unaccounted for, Kezu._ "

"Yes, yes," Kezu said dismissively, "but you know we are not supposed to talk about that. Anyway, keep on it and inform me when you have anything further. Now if you'll excuse me, I am running late for my regular appointment."

" _Of course, your regular appointment..._ " Tseng replied. " _But at this point I am not sure she will cooperate anymore. She hasn't been compliant ever since-_ "

Kezu hung up and pocketed the phone. He exhaled audibly, trying to rid himself of frustration before heading in. Kezu placed his right palm against the biometric security scanner and almost immediately, the door unlocked in an echoing slam of reinforced titanium bolts sliding free.

Just after entering the secured chamber, a crooked smile cracked across his thin lips as the doors slammed shut behind him in a clang that rang through the hangar like a death knell.

* * *

 **MAXIMUM SECURITY BRIG, COMMAND PLATFORM**

 **UNITED PEOPLES OF FORT CONDOR**

 **DISC 03 - 1735 DAYS AFTER ZERO PROTOCOL**

Ernest Franklin Griggs no longer knew if he was alive or dead.

In the syrupy darkness of the cell, Griggs had known only his own voice. The pain in his shoulders and arms from having hung from the wall for weeks on end had made him wish for the end. It made him wish for his joints and ligaments to rot away just so that he could fall to the ground and rest upon the earth.

A voice.

It would start again, he knew. Valerick was coming down to speak with him again.

No.

The voice was different.

The voice was not coming from outside. He could hear it within his head, echoing within his skull and making his stomach ache in waves of nausea.

 _Perhaps, you are ready now,_ the voice whispered.

"...Valerick…" Griggs had mumbled.

 _I no longer serve that one._

A crack in the floor of the cell snapped open just in front of Griggs, and a sickly red aether-light oozed from out of it, bathing Griggs' face in the shades of blood and fire. At first, Griggs looked away, startled by the sudden vision. After a moment had passed, he looked into the crack and saw a spectral eye staring directly into him, its serpentine slit of an iris opening and closing like the ravenous jaws of a hellbeast.

Griggs let out a whimper that was half insanity and half shock. His entire being dripped with fear.

 _You are akin to a wonderful fruit. One that has been ripened upon the vine of hatred, vengeance, and fear. One that I choose unequivocally. The irony here is that, in order to go further, it is_ you _who must pick me._

Griggs continued to stare into the eye in the cracked floor as it spoke its cacophony into his fractured mind.

"What… are… you?"

 _I have too many names,_ the voice said in a skeleton's whisper. _But, you may call upon me as "Hades."_


End file.
